Re-enter Fu Manchu [Pocket Book]

Sax Rohmer (Author)

Product Details

• Pocket Book
• Publisher: Pyramid (1963)
• ASIN: B0013RES4I
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars WILL THE REAL NAYLAND SMITH PLEASE STAND UP..., May 21, 2002

By 

s.ferber (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Re-enter Fu Manchu (Mass Market Paperback)

This book, the 12th of 14 in the Fu Manchu series, is, like number 11 ("The Shadow of Fu Manchu"), a short, minor but nevertheless compact entry in the Fu saga. This time, the Fu man attempts to wrest control of his native China from the pesky Communists who have taken his country over. The book features one of the most complex plots of any Fu Manchu novel; indeed, it can be accused of being overplotted! But what makes this book so interesting, and sets it apart from all the other books in the series, is that we don't know until the very end whether or not Nayland Smith, our eternal Fu fighter from all the previous novels, is indeed Nayland Smith OR, as has been subtly hinted, a DOUBLE that Fu Manchu has concocted via plastic surgery. Brian Merrick, the young grad student who is enlisted by Smith to help him, is in a similar quandary, never knowing what the heck is going on, and the reader shares his puzzlement. Without knowing for sure whether Smith is indeed Smith, all stability is pulled out from under us, and all characters become suspect. The book is a true mystery that keeps you guessing, the action jumping from London to Cairo to the Big Apple.
This time around, there are practically no internal inconsistencies or inconsistencies with previous volumes. Nevertheless, there are one or two goofs. At one point, FBI man Harkness tells Smith that he has 11 men on the case: 4 FBI and 9 police. Does something not add up here or is it just me? Also, the description of one of Fu Manchu's agents, Nadia Narovska, with amethyst eyes and auburn hair, sounds exactly like the character of Ardatha in several of the previous volumes. Perhaps Sax Rohmer just had a thing for red-headed women with violet eyes. In any case, this is yet another fun thriller in the Fu Manchu saga.