YELLOW PERIL"": The Adventures of Sir John Weymouth-Smythe
By
Who remembers Dr. Fu Manchu and his nemesis from Scotland Yard, Nayland Smith? The original Fu novels were mostly dreadful and dull, and Jaccoma has not lost the claptrap Sax Rohmer touch while revamping the doctor into Chou en Shu (now essentially a good guy) and Nayland Smith into Sir John Weymouth-Smythe, Britain's licensed-to-kill secret operator in post-WW I Thailand. Moreover, the real revamping here consists of adding deep layers of kinky sex, Smythe's outrageous racial snobbery, occult-y trappings, and. . . Adolf Hitler. Yes, the young Hitler is on the rise about this time, and he needs the Spear of Destiny (the holy lance that killed Christ) to conquer the world. Apparently, only Chou can keep it from him. From the opening chapters, in which Smythe's beloved is buggered by the horribly sexually over-endowed Chou (also raped, beheaded, and de-hearted), until the climactic battle royal (Chou and Hitler locked in a death struggle for the Spear), things are never what they seem. They're always even more revolting and dumb than you could possibly imagine.