Rating: 
Summary: Action packed mystery adventure.
Review: "The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu" is the first and among the best of a long line of adventures that feature the evil genius, Dr. Fu Manchu. To borrow from Arthur Conan Doyle, the game is afoot in pre-WWI England. There is not a central plot, but rather an episodic series of related adventures. Government agent Nayland Smith and his intrepid scribe, Dr. Petrie are caught in a dizzy web of mystery and violent death. Assassins abound. Everything from dacoits to poisonous insects, from vipers to vamps is used to commit mayhem. Fu Manchu is the sinister mastermind that directs the angels of doom. We are told he seeks to advance what is vaguely described as "The Yellow Peril." (Since this pulp fiction was first published in 1913, the racial references do not allow for diversity scrutiny). This is good armchair adventuring. The prose is vigorous rather than literary. The characters are mostly one-dimensional. The most complex character is Fu Manchu himself. One quibble, the evil doctor is too frequently offstage. Much as an old movie serial, the action is fast and furious. Good reading for pre-teens and aging baby boomers that recall the paperback series on dime store racks everywhere in the mid-60s. If you remember when a paperback cost .60 cents, this book is for you. Have fun.
;-)
Rating: 
Summary: Great fun if one remembers...
Review: ...that it is impossible to take a novel that was very much of it's time, 1913, and look at it with the attitudes and manners of today. Yes, it most certainly is not politically correct and why should it be? Political correctness is a fairly modern invention and keep in mind, we're talking England 1913. The Boxer rebellion was only a few decades old and there was some paranoia about the Chinese. I'm not saying that racism is right, it's horrid but again, remember the attitudes of the time.From an adventure reader's viewpoint, a very entertaining book indeed. I enjoyed the quick pace and the strong female character. (If Rohmer was such a racist, would he have Dr. Petrie in love with an Arab woman?)Fu Manchu is facinating. I'll end this review by quoting the introduction to this edition of the book: To paraphrase, the Chinese as written by Sax Rohmer are no more "real" than the Orcs of JRR Tolkiens Lord of the Rings. Keep that in mind and you'll have fun with this facinating period piece.
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular Orientalist Cheese...
Review: Every orientalist cliche you could imagine, knee-deep like the pile of some hallucinatory Oriental rug. I'm sure there are those who'd find it insulting... but to me it was just kitschy fun. Frankly, I would NOT want a kid to read this-- they don't know enough to sift through the stereotypes. But it deserves to be picked up for any undergraduate cultural studies syllabus dealing with Western ideas about the Orient. (It also helps that it's a fun read, in its own pulpy way. Great airplane book.)
Rating:
Summary: A crackling good yarn!
Review: I love a good adventure story, and this is surely that. Of course, as the other reviewers below mention, the book is not politically correct. But lay that aside and just let yourself get caught up in the fast-paced narrative sweep, which, I assure you, will NOT be hard. What WILL be hard is for any red-blooded fellow to read this exciting tale and not be enslaved ever so slightly by the charms of Karamaneh, the exotic woman who.... I'm stopping myself before I say too much about her. Suffice it to say that you will finish the book wishing that she had been in it more. A LOT MORE. Enough, enough! Buy it! Read it! You'll love/hate Fu-Manchu and delight in Smith and Petrie's persistent pursuit of him.
Rating:
Summary: INSIDIOUS!
Review: I must say that I blush in confessing that reading this book gave me the chills. One way to gauge a story is by the force of antagonism raised against the hero. In this book, the force of antagonism is perfectly ominous, artfully deadly, and rancidly horrific--the Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu rouses high expectations, and chapter after chapter it exceeds them. Everything that you would want from a mystery/suspense/action/adventure novel is here in this book, and it is here in high doses. Brimming with intrigue, romance, mystery, murder, mayhem, zaps, traps, pitfalls, poisons, hair-breadth escapes and miraculous revivals, the 'Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu' grabs you from the start and doesn't let you go 'til the end, and by that time you're so intoxicated from the deep pleasure this book has provided that you either A: Read this book again, and/or B: Yearn to get your hands on copies of the next books in the series (which, unfortunately, are hard to come by these days). Have I mentioned that this book gave me the chills? Chills, thrills, and the greatest of heart-pounding, nail-biting, deviously sublime episodes of reading you'll ever have. Great fun!
Rating:
Summary: The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
Review: Insidious, he certainly is. Yes, he certainly is insidious. And to think he's a doctor, as well! Fu Manchu is an outdated, appallingly politically-incorrect criminal mastermind who, in this intro to the author's famous series, basically goes on a killing spree to eliminate anyone even remotely threatening his plans for world domination. This simple plot device creates a fast-moving romp, but it does mean that brave and noble protagonist Nayland Smith, teamed with Petrie, the story's narrator, is mostly on defense throughout. If they are not trying to prevent a murder, then they are trying to solve a murder that has been done in some exotic way dreamed up by the elusive Fu. There are scads of locked-room or related scenarios popping up like done toast all through the story, and the reader is usually trying, along with Smith and Petrie, to figure out what poisonous creature got loosed in a dead fellow's study, or what trained killer, human or beast, made those weird marks out on the windowsill, three floors up. Meanwhile, Fu Manchu is thankfully not one of those megalomaniacs who blindly trusts his lackeys to do all the dirty work; the big man himself is occasionally "on site" meaning the heroes can try to put the grab on him before he pulls a vanishing act. He is adept at slipping away, though, and has a knack for disguise. But the best parts of the book are arguably when Fu Manchu is directly confronting the heroes, sometimes when he's got them helpless. So the book is essentially a frenzied cat-and-mouse game, not much slower than air whooshing out of a bellows. The better to tempt you on to the next installment, I suppose. For sex appeal, there is the good-guys' help on the inside: beautiful and exotic Karamaneh, she of the curves, who emerges from disguise, or the shadows, just long enough to intoxicate our narrator with her charms, and pass along snippets of info that keep Smith and Petrie on her master's trail. But--can she be trusted, or is Fu Manchu's hold on her too great? Once it becomes clear just how the evil genius keeps her in thrall, naturally our noble do-gooders seek to set her free. This plot twist, among others, speeds us to our conclusion, where finally our staunch defenders of the free (that means British) world manage to go, definitively, on the offensive. A shame their own sense of honour, even in the face of a master villain, keeps them from fighting dirty, while said villain has no such qualms. The lesson: don't get stuck in such a position where you have promised Fu Manchu you'll put your gun down, because if you're an English Gentleman, you'll have to keep that oath (or feel just terrible about yourself later that night...assuming you survived after putting your gun down and hoping Fu's henchman will drop his knife). Lots of thrills, a world famous villain, loads of politically incorrect descriptions of various races, murders and deathtraps, opium and assassination. It's all here, waiting to be breezed through before you have time to really pick at it.
Rating:
Summary: A Grand Time,Not For Those Infected By Political Correctness
Review: Sax Rohmer dabbled in various types of writing but he is today best remembered for creating one of literature's great villains,Doctor Fu Manchu. Basically a product of the early 20th Century its fixation on saving the West from the "Yellow Peril" from the East might rile those suffering from political correctness. The stories though and some of their attitudes were not just Rohmer's but reflected his time's and its thinking (even among the so-called enlightened). Most folks though will by pass intellectual verbage and take these tales for what they are- grand old fashioned adventures. Inspector Nayland Smith matches both wits and brawn with with Doctor Fu Manchu to foil his various attempts at world conquest. The chase spans the globe and the action rarely pauses for breath. Rohmer's writing style is crisp and no nonsense just like his characters. All in all a great times and if you like this one there are plenty of others to satisfy your appetite.
Rating: 
Summary: Solid intro for the leader of the Yellow Peril...
Review: Sax Rohmer's work has been compared to Arthur Conan Doyle's often enough that I felt compelled to check it out, and discover more about Fu-Manchu beyond what I already knew about the character (that a certain kind of 1970's moustache was named after him). At one time the West was terrified of "Young China", and the forces at work in China that could conceivably have led to a radical alteration of the world's power structures. The Chinese were the bad guys because they were "inscrutable" (love that word!), and therefore frightening. Without a doubt, the view of the author is rather dated, in his obvious bias against the Chinese (or at least they were handy villains for him). His constant allusions to the "Yellow Peril" and the unspeakable dangers posed to the white race by the yellow is in keeping with the times (1913), but a bit overboard nevertheless. The book is more of a series of sketchy, running battles between the sinister Fu-Manchu and hero Smith rather than a standard, cohesive narrative. This should come as no surprise since the author cobbled together several of his Fu-Manchu short stories into this one single volume. However, the results of this process are mixed, and not totally effective. Not that it really matters, since this novel was successful enough to call for more and better stories with the homicidal genius. This particular edition (Dover Classic Mysteries), is very inexpensive, and well worth the price of admission to experience the debut of Fu-Manchu, and to learn something about the social attitudes of the time in which he was created.
Rating:
Summary: Only one book in a series that intrigues and fasinates!
Review: This is only one of many of Sax Rohmers amazing novels. It is very unfortunate that they are not more readily enjoyable because although they are not politically correct, they can be enjoyed by readers of all ages.
Rating:
Summary: Great fun if one remembers...
Review: This is the first of the Fu Manchu books. It is a lot like a Sherlock Holmes story set years in the future. Very exciting stuff. Dr Fu Manchu is also really mean!
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