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Title:
The Mask of Fu-Manchu
Series: Dr Fu-Manchu
#5
Author: Sax Rohmer
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Stars
Genre: Pulp Mystery
Pages:
192
Words: 70K
Publish: 1932
This
is a direct sequel to The Daughter of Fu-Manchu (link
below my avatar) and thus some doofus named Greville is the narrator
instead of Dr Petrie. I’ve complained about Petrie being stupid in
the past, but my goodness, Greville is just one huge ball of stupid
from top to toe, front to back, beginning to end. I had to stop
reading several times because he was being such an idiot and I
couldn’t stand reading such stupidity. Then throw in his boss, the
archeologist Lionel Barton who trades fake goods to Dr Fu-Manchu for
the life of his own niece and that pretty much sums up Barton. He
was a scumbag and I hated him.
Petrie shows up to do “doctor’y” things and then jets off when not needed by the author. Fu-Manchu’s main English adversary, Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, sometimes referred to as Sir Dennis and at other times as Nayland Smith, does his typical bungling job of opposing Fu-Manchu. Greville’s lover and Barton’s niece is there to provide a frisson of danger and to be kidnapped and that’s about it.
Finally, the biggest thing that got my goat, was that Fu-Manchu acts like an English Blue-Blood and keeps his “sacred and honorable word” even though it means not killing Nayland Smith, Petrie and Barton, the man who cheated him. It was pure national projection on the part of Rohmer (the author) and it stank like three day old fish. There are times I wish people like Rohmer had been in Mao’s re-education camps. I realize that is impossible, given when this was written and when Mao’s reign of terror occurred, but still, I like to fantasize.
I still enjoyed the overall story of the rise of a heretic sect of Islam but it wasn’t much of a Dr Fu-Manchu story, hence the extremely low rating. I just hope that wretched Greville isn’t the narrator for the next story.
★✬☆☆☆
From the Publisher
After discovering the tomb of El Mokanna - the Veiled Prophet - and retrieving the precious relics buried there, the eminent archaeologist Sir Lionel Barton blows up the tomb. The heretic sect faithful to Mokanna interpret the fireball as their prophet's second coming, and a violent uprising begins.
Meanwhile, the insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu senses an opportunity to use the powerful relics for his own evil ends. The action stretches from Persia to Cairo, then back to London, including an extraordinary confrontation inside of the Great Pyramid. Along the way his opponents face Ogboni killers, mind-control drugs, dervishes, and a "ghost mosque."
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