Customer Reviews

Shadow of Fu Manchu

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This book, the 11th of 14 in the Fu Manchu series, is a short and minor entry in the Fu saga, but nonetheless a compact and suspenseful one. In many of the previous books, the Fu man sets his sights on a scientific genius and designs to either kidnap him, steal his invention or kill him in a macabre manner. This action is usually given a chapter or two and takes the form of an unusual episode in the larger scheme of the plot. This time around, the entire book is concerned with Fu's plans regarding Dr. Morris Craig's new energy weapon. While the weapon's ultimate use is never really spelled out, it seems to be some kind of disintegrator that can also be used as a potential source of limitless energy. This is the type of book that can be called a whodunnit,as well as a howdunnit and a whydunnit; all of the characters can be viewed as suspects. Even the characters that we are pretty sure are "good guys" can be guilty of misdeeds, given the Fu man's powers of hypnosis and mind control. Thus, the reader is unsure till the very end of the book why people do what they do and act the way they act. Who is the British agent? Who is the Russian agent? Who is the secret FBI agent? You get the idea. The Fu man's main goal in this book seems to be to thwart the Communists from getting control of Dr. Craig's energy weapon; thus, he comes off a little more sympathetically than in some of the other entries in the series. The action this time takes place in the Big Apple and in a country estate in the Connecticut countryside. The estate scene is a very suspenseful sequence indeed. The book also features a memorable character named M'goyna, a Turkish zombie who is more gorilla than man. He is one of Fu's more remarkable henchmen. Also featured is a Sevillian torture chair that lowers a skull-crushing canopy onto the occupant; one of the Dr.'s more grisly inducements.
The book contains fewer inconsistencies than others in the series. I did notice some things that bothered me, however. The author often refers to Fu Manchu speaking sibilantly, but often this will happen when the sentence Fu has just spoken contains no "s" or "sh" sounds at all! How can this be? Also, in one point of the book, Nayland Smith, our eternal Fu fighter, says that Fu's drug for paralyzing the speech muscles wears off with time. He says that Fu told this to him. However, we are never shown Fu saying this, and indeed, when Smith was thus paralyzed, he needed an antidote injection to counteract the effects of the drug! It also doesn't make sense that {WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD} Fu Manchu has already possessed the prototype of Craig's invention for many years. Why hasn't he taken over the world decades ago, with an invention such as this? But quibbles aside, I feel that any fan of fast-paced action, with a tinge of sci-fi and mystery thrown in, will enjoy this short but fun entry in the Fu series.

This is the edition of "The Mountains Have a Secret" which I'm reviewing and the book contains three other mysteries, 842 pages in all. It was published by The Unicorn Detective Mystery Club and is sturdily bound which looks nice on the bookshelf.

If you prefer the single edition of this book, it's available: The Mountains Have a Secret.

There's no such thing as a bad Upfield mystery, most of which involve his favorite Detective-Inspector, the highly educated and unorthodox Napoleon Bonaparte who happens to be bi-racially half-Caucasian and half-Aborigine.

Known as "Bony" to his many friends, Australia's premier investigator is called in to snoop around undercover, posing as a sheep rancher on vacation, in a last ditch effort to discover what happened to two missing female hikers. In addition to the girls' disappearance, a young detective who preceded Bony in the case was murdered in the same region, (near Dunkeld, Victoria), apparently in an unrelated matter.

The tale is set post World War II, an event which becomes a focal point of the story beginning with Bony's introduction to a former soldier who hails from Texas and who shows up on the scene long after the girls had mysteriously disappeared. Bony checks in undercover at a small backwoods resort hotel and pub where the girls were last seen by the owners. In addition to a foul-mouthed cockatoo, one of the hotel family members is a cantankerous and eccentric old man who is confined to a wheelchair and whom Bony suspects as being a lot less fanatical than he puts on.

Bony is way out on a limb and forced to fend for himself, having cautioned his superiors not to interfere in his case. They grudgingly comply with his insistent request only because the great detective has never failed to "finalize" a case and all reasonable hope of finding these girls has long been abandoned. But as Bony discovers tiny clues and is ultimately ordered off the premises, the personal danger factor escalates to the highest level... and Bony is made ever more aware of this fact when he discovers that a local swagman has also been murdered!

Here we have some of Upfield's best work. He crams a lot into 188 pages and the tale never lacks for action. And as in all of Upfield's memorable works, the word painting of the enchanting Australian locations in this one represents the superlative feature of the Upfield writing style.

For a terrific introduction to the Upfield mysteries, (there are thirty, most of which are Napoleon Bonaparte tales), try reading: Mr. Jelly's Business, which has also been re-titled and is available as Murder Down Under.