Sir George Halliday, in China, is hunted by Wu Ling and The Brotherhood of the Yellow Beetle-to be killed before he can escape and return to England to warn the country about this criminal organization. He does escape, but is killed back in England upon his arrival. Since he is a friend and confident of Sexton Blake, there is reason enough for the detective to pursue. The inscrutable Orientals first kidnap Tinker and then Sir George's daughter. Their torture brings Blake to maddened heights of risk.
With war looming, Sir John, Chief of the British Secret Service, calls on Sexton Blake with a most delicate problem: the Minister of Munitions has gone missing. He must be located, and quickly, with no word of the matter reaching the public.
An entirely new perspective on current scaremongering about China’s global ambitions, and on the Western media’s ignorance of Chinese culture A hundred years ago, a character who was to enter the bloodstream of 20th-century popular culture made his first appearance in the world of literature. In his day he became as well known as Count Dracula or Sherlock Holmes: he was the evil genius called Dr. Fu Manchu, described at the beginning of the first story in which he appeared as “the yellow peril incarnate in one man.” Why did the idea that the Chinese were a threat to Western civilization develop at precisely the time when China was in chaos, divided against itself, the victim of successive famines and utterly incapable of being a “peril” to anyone even if it had wanted to be? Even the author of the Dr. Fu Manchu novels, Sax Rohmer, acknowledged that China, “as a nation possess that elusive thing, poise.” And what do the Chinese themselves make of all this? Is it any wonder that they remember what we have carelessly forgotten–the opium wars; the “unfair treaties” that ceded Hong Kong and the New Territories; and the stereotyping of Chinese people in allegedly factual studies? Here cultural historian Christopher Frayling takes us to the heart of popular culture in the music hall, pulp literature, and the mass-market press, and shows how film amplifies our assumptions.
A Magnificent 80,000-word Romance! Written by the author of ?The Yellow Sphinx? A Christmas Story with a Deeply Laid Plot Introducing Sexton Blake, Tinker, Pedro, Yvonne; Dr. Huxton Rymer, and Wu Ling, Chief of the Brotherhood of the Yellow Beetle. ?Simply one of the best Sexton Blake tales of all time.?
More than forty criminal heroes are examined in this volume. They include evil characters such as Dr. Fu Manchu, Li Shoon, Black Star, the Spider, Rafferty, Mr. Clackworthy, Elegant Edward, Big-nose Charlie, Thubway Tham, the Thunderbolt, the Man in Purple, and the Crimson Clown, plus many, many more! The development of these characters is traced across more than two decades of crime fiction published in Detective Story Magazine, Flynn's, Black Mask, and other magazines. The conventions that made these stories a special part of popular fiction are examined in detail.
A Magnificent Long Complete Story of Sexton Blake and Tinker in present-day China. Behind the rebel Cantonese army in China (outwardly actuated by the Moscow "Reds") stands Wu Ling, prince of the imperial Manchu race, and Sexton Blake's enemy of old. An eclipse of the sun, long foretold by China's astronomers, is to be the signal for the uprising of the yellow race, and the driving of the foreign devils into the sea. Here, in thrilling "U. J." fashion, is told how the man from Baker Street brought a great plot to confusion. A superb yarn, as you'll agree! Enthralling Adventure with Sexton Blake in Warring China!
Sexton Blake fights the bootleggers and pirates of America's Rum Row. A tensely-told tale of 'tec work and thrills, introducing also Mlle. Roxane. Complete! Drama, Action, Thrills-and Sexton Blake! Roxane Harfield, born in New Brunswick, Canada, is featured in this story. Her knowledge of the New Brunswick South-East shoreline, and Bay of Fundy, is a key feature of this thriller from USA prohibition days. Also included is 'The Sexton Blake Works of George Hamilton Teed' in the "Union Jack" and "The Sexton Blake Library"
E.S. Turner's first book, published in 1948, is a wholly original, richly researched and uncommonly insightful study of a somewhat disreputable genre: the 'Boys' Weekly' papers commonly known as 'penny dreadfuls.' 'A classic of its kind... [Turner] ploughed through back numbers of the old blood-and-thunder adventure magazines specialising in cliffhanger serials; the young hero would be left hanging over a cliff in a totally impossible situation, which would be easily resolved in the next issue: 'With one bound Jack was free.' Social history had never been as much fun or, with three extra printings in its first week - such was the demand - as profitable.' Jonathan Sale, Guardian 'Some people felt that E.S. Turner may have invented a new kind of book - the popular social history, very British, very funny, but written with a glistening elegance.' Andrew O'Hagan, London Review of Books
