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THE YELLOW CLAW
Writer Henry Leroux's receives a late-night visitor, a scantily-clad woman who suddenly dies while Leroux is getting help from the doctor who lives in the flat above. A torn message is found in the dead woman's hand with the hastily scribbled words, "Mr. King." Inspector Dunbar is suspicious of Leroux, whose wife is supposedly visiting a friend in Paris-who hasn't seen her in months. Could this be a lover's tryst gone wrong? And what of Leroux's butler, Soames, who has suddenly disappeared? Famed Parisian detective, Gaston Max, is called in, but even Max finds the case particularly baffling. One thing for certain-drugs are involved, and probably opium. The elusive trail leads him to the genial Mr. Gianapolis and the Cave of the Golden Dragon, where addicts seek the solace of the pipe, and where the beautiful and imperious Mahâra holds sway. But who is the elusive Mr. King, whose hand reaches out to bring death-as the yellow claw?
THE GOLDEN SCORPION
Dr. Keppel Stuart is awakened in the night and sees a cowled figured outside his window. Convinced the next morning that this had all been a dream, he has no idea that he has come under the surveillance of a nefarious Chinaman, the Scorpion, and his followers. Dr. Stuart is an expert on toxicology, but is no match for the feminine whiles of Mlle. Dorian, known to detective Gaston Max as Zâra el-Khalâ, "Flower of the Desert." Max has followed her group from Paris to London, disguised and thought dead by the police. But Max is very much alive, and this time "the foremost criminal investigator in Europe" is on the trail of a mastermind so cunning it takes all of Max's resources to ferret him out. With the help of Dr. Stuart and Inspector Dunbar, Max pursues Zâra and her mysterious servant, Chunda Lal, little knowing that their master has plans that include the subjugation of the Western World!
About the author
Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (1883 - 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu. Born in Birmingham to a working-class family, Arthur Ward initially pursued a career as a civil servant before concentrating on writing full-time. He worked as a poet, songwriter and comedy sketch writer for music hall performers before creating the Sax Rohmer persona and pursuing a career writing fiction. Like his contemporaries Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, Rohmer claimed membership to one of the factions of the qabbalistic Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Rohmer also claimed ties to the Rosicrucians, but the validity of his claims has been questioned. His doctor and family friend Dr R. Watson Councell may have been his only legitimate connection to such organizations. His first published work came in 1903, when the short story "The Mysterious Mummy" was sold to Pearson's Weekly. Rohmer's main literary influences seem to have been Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle and M. P. Shiel. He gradually transitioned from writing for music hall performers to concentrating on short stories and serials for magazine publication. In 1909 he married Rose Elizabeth Knox. He published his first book Pause! anonymously in 1910.
