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Title:
The Bride of Fu-Manchu
Series: Dr Fu-Manchu
#6
Author: Sax Rohmer
Rating: 3 of 5
Stars
Genre: Pulp Mystery
Pages:
288
Words: 69K
Publish: 1933
After
the disaster that was the stupidfest known as The Mask of Dr
Fu-Manchu, I was much relieved
to get a more levelheaded narrator. He’s a new young guy, which
meant that there was probably going to be a new young girl and sure
enough, in the opening scene, fate destined lovers run across each
other on a deserted beach.
Throughout the book it is revealed that Fu-Manchu has kidnapped and mind-enslaved the greatest minds across the world and made them loyal to himself. They have been working on various problems and so the bad Doctor is now supplied with all sorts of super-science weapons. One is a new form of the black plague, carried by a hybrid fly of sorts. Fu-Manchu plans on releasing them on a global scale and thus depopulate the world before it knows what hit it. Unfortunately, his scientists haven’t overcome the climate of Russia and so Fu-Manchu gives up the whole plan in a sulky huff.
Dr Petrie apparently dies, we find out he has a daughter (who was thought to have died as an infant) and said daughter is the new love interest for the new narrator. All very sappy and emotional.
There is also two scenes where the narrator and Sir Denis Nayland Smith have Doctor Fu-Manchu within their power while he is in an opium induced coma. Neither can bring themselves to kill the Doctor because it “wouldn’t be honorable and goes against the conscience”. Oh, I almost threw my ereader against the wall at that point. If you aren’t willing to end Evil, then you are abetting it. Of course I realize it is plot-armor but it still reflects Rohmer’s general world view and it’s a terrible one.
★★★☆☆
From Blackgate.com
The Bride of Fu Manchu introduces readers to a new narrator/hero in the form of the young botanist, Dr. Alan Sterling. As the book opens, Sterling is in France along with Dr. Petrie. They have both been called in to investigate a strange new epidemic that has stricken the Riviera.
Sterling comes ashore on Ste. Claire and discovers a beautiful girl on an otherwise deserted beach. The introductory scene is a long and evocative one and will be instantly familiar to James Bond fans as a clear influence on Ian Fleming. The girl is called Fleurette and likens herself to the goddess, Derceto. She is the property of the mysterious Mahdi Bey, who owns the great house on Ste. Claire. A strange sonic trumpet sounds and Fleurette rushes back to her master’s home, leaving Sterling both smitten and frustrated by their brief but tantalizing encounter.
Returning to Petrie’s rented villa on the Riviera, Sterling can’t get Fleurette out of his head. Falling asleep, he has a queer dream of a purple cloud covering New York from which a dragon emerges. A Chinese figure (whom the reader will recognize as Dr. Fu Manchu) and Fleurette are riding the dragon.
Petrie awakens him and tells him about the latest victim of the plague that has struck the Riviera. During the course of their conversation, the reader learns that Petrie attended the University of Edinburgh with Sterling’s father and that in recent years he has become a world-renowned expert on tropical diseases. It isn’t very long before Sterling begins to suspect that Petrie is exhibiting early signs of the epidemic himself.
While working on his research, Sterling is startled to discover a Chinaman spying on him from the garden. He is unable to catch the intruder, but has his first encounter with a frantic Sir Denis Nayland Smith, who has just arrived from London. Taking Smith inside to see Petrie, they discover the doctor has collapsed and appears to be near death.
Sterling informs Smith the epidemic is a man-made hybrid of the sleeping sickness and the plague that is spread by crossbreeding the tsetse fly with the rat-flea. Smith sees the hand of Dr. Fu Manchu in this plot and quickly brings Sterling up to speed. Passing reference is made by Sterling to Petrie’s ill-fated hobby of trying to break the bank at Monte Carlo, in truth one of the author’s real-life preoccupations.
The comatose Petrie’s one chance at life is to be administered the antidote he was working on at the time he succumbed. Smith prepares the solution with Sterling’s aid and injects his old friend with the untested serum. Within an hour of being hospitalized, Petrie shows signs of stabilizing. Their joy is short-lived upon learning the epidemic has spread through Europe, North America, and Australia.
Sterling keeps vigil at Petrie’s bedside during the night and is startled to find the Chinaman who had been at the villa now peering through the window of Petrie’s hospital room. Before he can investigate further, a nurse enters and introduces him to Petrie’s newly-arrived wife, Karamaneh. Sterling is struck by her beauty and finds he is barely able to control himself around her. He struggles to prevent her from kissing her still-comatose husband, but she heeds Sir Denis’s warning that no one may touch Petrie. Karamaneh departs, leaving a disoriented Sterling feeling guilty for the wanton lust that possessed him.
Nayland Smith arrives to relieve Sterling and, after learning of the Chinaman at the hospital window, quickly concludes that Mrs. Petrie is being impersonated by Fah lo Suee, the daughter of Fu Manchu. He congratulates Sterling for having saved Petrie’s life, but warns him he will be a marked man as a result of his interference. While driving back to the villa, Sterling is nearly run off the Grand Corniche by a Rolls Royce driven by an African chauffeur. As the vehicle speeds by, he catches a glimpse of Fleurette and a wizened old man he assumes must be the mysterious Mahdi Bey. Longtime readers will of course know that Sterling has just had his first glimpse of Dr. Fu Manchu.
Sterling returns to the villa and discovers the servant unconscious and Petrie’s laboratory and study have been ransacked. Convinced that Dr. Fu Manchu is searching for the antidote Petrie discovered, he tries to ring Sir Denis at the hospital, only to learn the telephone wires have been cut. Before he can act, the electricity goes out and the villa is plunged into darkness. Hearing Fah lo Suee and the Chinaman outside his door, he fires his pistol and hears the Chinaman fall to the floor. Gas begins pouring through the shutters and after recognizing the odor of Mimosa, Sterling loses consciousness.
When he recovers, Sir Denis is at his side. Sterling learns that the formula to the antidote is in the hands of the enemy and Dr. Petrie’s condition is worsening. Petrie’s life is dependent upon their French and German colleagues’ abilities to perfect the antidote. A weakened Sterling collapses as readers are left eager to know what will happen next.
After Alan Sterling recovers consciousness, Sir Denis insists he dine out that evening in Monte Carlo to take his mind off the terrible situation with Dr. Petrie. Complying with his wishes, Alan drives to Monaco and spends some time at a casino trying to apply Petrie’s (really Rohmer’s) complicated system to break the bank, to no avail. While dining that night, he is startled to spy Fleurette at another table dining with a Russian nobleman and Mahdi Bey.
Observing them in public, Sterling convinces himself that Fleurette must be Mahdi Bey’s mistress. This devastates him as he has idealized her as his virginal dream girl since first glimpsing her on the beach at Ste. Claire. Sterling’s reverie is broken when he spies the Chinese agents of Dr. Fu Manchu in the restaurant. He then hears the mysterious sonic trumpet sound once more. He doesn’t understand the connection, but he is now certain that Mahdi Bey is somehow mixed up in the dangerous business and Fleurette with him.
Before he can ponder matters further, he is called away to the telephone where he receives the terrible news that Dr. Petrie has passed away in the hospital. Sterling’s grief turns to rage and he follows a Chinaman out into the garden, intending to exact revenge. The man runs from Sterling, who shoots at him twice. Believing he has killed the man, Sterling is startled to find the Chinaman was only playing possum. The man wraps his legs around Sterling’s neck and quickly chokes him into unconsciousness.
Sterling recovers consciousness in a strange laboratory where he encounters Mahdi Bey, who reveals that he is Dr. Fu Manchu. Only then does Sterling realize this was the man he saw in his queer dream before he had ever set eyes upon him. Dr. Fu Manchu explains that Sterling is to become one of his companions. He is escorted to the botany room where he is to work with a German botanist that Sterling believed died five years before. Sterling begins questioning his sanity when faced with this seemingly impossible situation.
Shock builds upon shock as Sterling is introduced to the other companions, all men of scientific genius the world believes dead. All of them are alive and serving Dr. Fu Manchu in his laboratory. Interestingly, some of these characters have featured in other books in the series. The scientific advances Fu Manchu has made on the backs of these geniuses astounds Sterling, but none more than the hideous hairless hybrid of man, beast, and insect that lumbers down the corridor.
Free to explore his new home, Alan encounters Fleurette and is delighted to learn the man she calls Mahdi Bey is her guardian who has raised her since childhood. They are interrupted by Fah lo Suee, who takes him to her father. During their brief conversation, Sterling comes to view Fu Manchu’s daughter as an unexpected ally.
His audience with Dr. Fu Manchu is a distressing one. Sterling is to be made a companion, which involves receiving an injection which would appear to make the subject docile. Fu Manchu discusses the Si-Fan’s plans for the Western world while he prepares opium for himself.
Mention is made that drowning the world in gold is his ultimate goal (as we shall see in the following book). Fu Manchu recommends Sterling read Apologia Alchemiae by Dr. Watson Councell.
Sterling is taken to Companion Yamamata, who administers the injection to bring him into the Si-Fan. Fah lo Suee was true to her word and Sterling realizes she has switched the formula so that no change overcomes him. Sterling plays along and does his best to act the part of the enthusiastic initiate to this New World Order. Through their conversation, Sterling learns the hairless hybrid was a homunculus that escaped its incubator and died a short time later. When Sterling declares his desire to kneel at Dr. Fu Manchu’s feet, Companion Yamamata informs him gravely that everyone kneels at the Master’s feet.
Brought before Dr. Fu Manchu, Sterling discovers the old man’s pupils are dilated from his opium habit. Sterling is given a ring which conceals a miniature radio from which he will receive directions in Morse code. Sterling retires to his room, where he has another queer dream; this one is a premonition of Nayland Smith. He is awakened by Fah lo Suee.
Fu Manchu’s daughter explains why she allowed him to escape the mind control drug. She will aid his escape if he takes Fleurette with him. She explains her father’s plan is to make Fleurette his bride so that she may bear him a son. Fah lo Suee does not wish to be supplanted by a male heir and so Alan Sterling and Fleurette will benefit from her desire to thwart her father’s plans. In the meantime, Sterling remains a prisoner of Mahdi Bey’s fantastic estate on Ste. Claire, where the greatest minds of the last century live beyond death to toil for the glory of the Si-Fan.
Our narrator and hero, botanist Alan Sterling has found himself a Companion of the Si-Fan along with numerous other scientific geniuses conscripted into their service after falling victim to the catalepsy-inducing drug that leads the outside world to believe them dead. Fah lo Suee, the daughter of Fu Manchu, has conspired to prevent Sterling from being subjected to her father’s mind control drug in order to use him as a pawn to remove Fleurette, raised since childhood to bear Fu Manchu a son, from the household.
Attempting to escape, Sterling stumbles upon Fu Manchu in an opium trance. He considers murdering him to avenge Dr. Petrie’s death, but finds he is unable to lift a hand against him for some unknown reason. Retracing his steps, Sterling works to find an escape route through the elaborate cave system that leads from Mahdi Bey’s estate down to the beach at Ste. Claire. Rohmer builds suspense well as Sterling’s path through the dark is made more dramatic as he becomes aware someone is stalking him. Both Sterling and the reader are startled to learn the pursuer is none other than Nayland Smith.
Sterling brings Smith up to speed about what he has discovered in Mahdi Bey’s estate and tells him for the first time about Fleurette. Smith informs him that he had Petrie’s coffin exhumed and discovered the body inside was not Petrie’s, but rather that of the dacoit that Sterling shot and killed when Fah lo Suee broke into Petrie’s villa in search of the plague antidote. Smith explains he believes Fah lo Suee managed to inject Petrie with the catalepsy-inducing drug when she visited him at the hospital posing as his wife. Fu Manchu must have stolen Petrie’s “corpse” from the mortuary and replaced it with the body of his dead servant. The hope remains that Petrie is alive and may yet be saved from serving Fu Manchu as a Companion of the Si-Fan.
Smith explains that under the guise of Mahdi Bey, Fu Manchu has used the scientific geniuses at his Riviera estate to augment and crossbreed several strains of plague. Smith believes he intends to blackmail the governments of the world into paying for an antidote. Rohmer’s use of biological warfare predates Ian Fleming’s plot of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by thirty years. Both books also begin with the hero meeting a beautiful and tragic female protagonist on the beach at the Riviera. Fleming credited Rohmer as a general influence, but On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Dr. No are the two James Bond titles that most clearly show Rohmer’s Fu Manchu series as a model.
Smith details his daring infiltration of Mahdi Bey’s estate. Like Sterling, he came upon Fu Manchu in his drugged state, but found himself unable to resist his towering psychic powers. Smith had a more perilous path to finding the escape route through the underground tunnel network. Just then, Sterling’s wrist watch emits a signal. He explains he is being recalled. Smith urges him to return and try to locate Petrie. He hurries back inside the cave system and is surprised to learn it was Fleuerette who called him.
Sterling is startled to learn that Fleurette is also infatuated with him and jealously believes Sterling is one of Fah lo Suee’s lovers. He assures her of his love for her and asks her to help him find Petrie. Fleurette takes him to Petrie’s cell and helps him to revive the doctor. Petrie is shocked upon first glimpsing Fleurette’s face but does not explain why. He writes the perfected formula to the antidote and passes it to Sterling. While Alan tries to convince Fleurette to leave with him and Petrie, she tells him his only chance is to escape on his own for she can never leave Mahdi Bey’s household. An alarm sounds and the section doors seal off Sterling and Fleurette from escape. Fleurette is terrified that Sterling will be discovered in her apartment. Alan is left wondering why visitations are forbidden.
The two lovers are brought before Fu Manchu. Sterling is shocked to find a subservient Fah lo Suee on our knees before her father with her head hung low in shame. Fu Manchu explains to Sterling he has learned of his daughter’s plot to prevent a male heir from supplanting her and of Sterling’s intended role. He has also learned that Sterling and Fleurette are in love with one another. Fu Manchu warns him that if he has taken Fleurette’s virginity, the work of eighteen years will be undone. The Devil Doctor also explains that his intent with his biological plagues is to decimate the population of the West to allow the East to more easily rule the world. As Sterling is taken from the room, he sees Fah lo Suee suspended from the ceiling by her wrists as her father brandishes a whip.
Sterling realizes his love for Fleurette has cost him his life, Petrie’s life, and the chance for the antidote ever reaching the outside world. He is left to die in a room filled with genetically engineered giant plague-carrying insects. Sterling manages to escape and is rescued by Nayland Smith who is leading a raid on Mahdi Bey’s estate. Regrettably, the raid was detected and by the time they reach the living quarters, they discover the estate has been abandoned with no trace remaining of Fu Manchu, Petrie, Fleurette, or any of the scientific geniuses who make up his willing slaves. Smith clings to hope they may yet overtake the villains when they try to escape on the Riviera. In the meantime, he is overjoyed to learn Petrie is alive and that the antidote to the deadly plague is in their hands
Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Alan Sterling lead the police raid of Mahdi Bey’s Riviera estate. Moving deep below sea level in the underground catacombs, they find themselves cut off by steel doors which descend on both sides. Fearing for their lives and plunged in darkness, they are startled to hear the voice of Fu Manchu informing them he is leaving by submarine and that Dr. Petrie and Fleurette go with him. He explains he is sparing their lives only because Sir Denis and Sterling spared his when they both encountered him in his opium trance.
Smith and Sterling manage to climb through an opening in the catacombs and descend into the underground stream and swim across until they can climb the rocks leading to the beach at St. Claire. Sir Denis notes that Petrie could never have made the journey to the submarine in his weakened condition and sees evidence of oil trails that suggest that another party has left the beach via motorboat. The question remains where the motorboat will meet up with the submarine. Smith suspects their destination would be a yacht with which to transport the party to the rendezvous.
While on the way to the Prefect of Police’s office, Smith explains to Sterling the tragedy that befell Petrie and his wife eighteen years ago, when their three week old baby daughter passed away unexpectedly. Smith suggests the baby girl may actually have been a victim of Fu Manchu’s catalepsy-inducing drug and that Fleurette is the Petries’ long lost daughter. Sterling realizes that is why Dr. Petrie was startled when he saw Fleurette, because of her strong resemblance to her mother.
At the Prefect of Police’s office, Sir Denis discovers a yacht from Argentina, the Lola, has recently departed from Monaco and is the property of Mahdi Bey. Certain this is the vessel on which Fu Manchu, Fleurette, and Dr. Petrie have sought refuge, Sir Denis organizes plans to intercept the vessel before it reaches the submarine. Precious time is lost as Smith is forced to appeal to diplomatic contacts in order for the French authorities to cooperate with British intelligence in a surprisingly realistic turn of events that only builds suspense for the reader.
Sir Denis and Sterling board a naval destroyer that overtakes the yacht. Rohmer completely surprises the reader by having the Lola overtaken before reaching its rendezvous and Fu Manchu placed under arrest. Dr. Petrie is found to be recovering his strength and is elated at the reunion with his now fully grown daughter. Fleurette and Alan are reunited with Petrie’s blessing. The doctor wires Kara with the extraordinary news.
Rohmer again allows the power of bureaucracy to be felt on proceedings. While Fu Manchu is under arrest in Paris, he appeals to the Chinese legation. Despite the dossier on him, Nayland Smith has no evidence to tie him to any crime, even the recent plague outbreak. Sir Denis has retained a French consul to try to arrange extradition to London. Fu Manchu has his own attorney in Paris, Maitre Foli, who is a member in good standing of the Si-Fan and the most celebrated attorney in France. Hope of extradition looks slim.
The ending comes as an unexpected shock to the reader. Maitre Foli has a private meeting with his client and then departs for the Chinese legation. When Sir Denis and Sterling enter Fu Manchu’s cell, they find Maitre Foli wearing Fu Manchu’s robes. Fu Manchu has made good his escape, disguised as the respectable Maitre Foli. The old attorney accepts the fact that his role in allowing Fu Manchu to escape justice will end his long career in disgrace and result in a prison sentence for what remains of his life. His chilling final words to Smith and Sterling that close the novel is that his life is a small price to pay to see that Fu Manchu’s work continues. Flabbergasted readers doubtless turned their mind back to Fu Manchu’s cryptic threat to Sterling to hold onto Fleurette if he can as a clear indication of what is in store in the next book in the series.
