The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer
Dr Petrie is surprised by a late night visitor, "a tall, thin man ... square cut ... tanned" who turns out to be his good friend (former Deputy Commissioner Sir Denis) Nayland Smith of Burma, formerly of Scotland Yard, which arrived directly from Burma. We then learn that various men associated with India are the target of the assassination by the Chinese criminal master Dr. Fu Manchu, who appears to have been active in Burma (as distinct from India), in places such as Rangoon, Prome, Moulmein and the "Upper Irrawaddy" and arriving in England with dacoits and thugs.
Fu Manchu is chased from the opium dens of Limehouse in London's East End to various country estates. We learn that Dr. Fu Manchu is not a prominent member of "old China", the Mandarin class of the Manchu dynasty, or "young China", a new generation of "young and deranged reformers" with "Western Pole" - but a " Third". Nayland Smith is defeated multiple times by Fu Manchu and therefore reflects more the tight escapes of the later Bulldog Drummond rather than the superior "logical" approach of the previous Sherlock Holmes.
Fu Manchu is a master poisoner and chemist, a cunning member of the Yellow Peril, "the greatest genius that the powers of evil have placed on earth for centuries", although his mission is not exactly clear at this stage. It appears he is trying to capture and bring Europe's best engineers back to China for broader criminal purposes.
At the end of the book, Fu Manchu's slave Karamaneh, a beautiful Arab woman, apparently now in love with Doctor Petrie, and her brother Aziz are released from Fu Manchu's captivity and Inspector Weymouth, maddened by an injection of serum. Fu Manchu, is brought back to sanity by Fu Manchu, who appears to have escaped a fire that destroyed the house he had previously entered.
