The first three Fu Manchu books were published in the four years between 1913–1917; but it was not until 1931 (some 14 years after the third book in the series) that Rohmer returned to the series with Daughter of Fu Manchu. The reason for the long interval was that Rohmer wanted to be rid of the series after The Si-Fan Mysteries. The first three books had been successfully filmed by Stoll in the twenties as a pair of serials.[3] In 1928, Rohmer finally bowed to pressure and agreed to write a fourth novel as a serial for Collier's. Paramount had the first Warner Oland picture gearing up for production and the daily newspaper strip based on the series was in the offing.[citation needed]Rohmer's first effort at reviving the Fu Manchu property was ultimately reworked as The Emperor of America. The original intent had been for the head of the organisation to be Fu Manchu's daughter. He kept Head Centre as a female criminal mastermind to combat Drake Roscoe, but was very unhappy with the book both as it started and in its finished form. He would later return to Drake Roscoe and his female supervillain for the Sumuru series. In the meantime, he tried again to focus his energies on what was first titled Fu Manchu's Daughter for Collier's in 1930, but with an older (now knighted) Denis Nayland Smith as the protagonist once more. The results were infinitely better and jump-started the series in the process.
I read EMPEROR OF AMERICA a long time ago and don't remember much about it aside from the fact that it had a female super-villain. DAUGHTER is certainly a better book, though I don't think it's nearly as good as HAND.
Though Doctor Petrie appears in the early chapters, he's no longer the series-narrator, possibly because he's now a middle-aged man, married to Karameneh and thus no longer capable of generating romantic plotlines. The new viewpoint character is young British stalwart Shan Greville, though Rohmer tells the reader even less about Greville's background than the author did regarding Petrie. Greville's informally linked to a current Egyptian expedition headed by Rohmer's favorite support-character, Sir Lionel Barton, and that linkage may come down to nothing more than the fact that the young man is in love with Rima, who is Barton's niece. Rohmer keeps telling readers that Rima is a superstitious "Irish colleen," though presumably she's at least half-British if she's Barton's niece.
Barton himself seems on the verge on his last appearance, since he starts out being declared dead. Petrie, however, receives a warning that it's possible to revive Barton with a special elixir, in Petrie's possession after one of the physician's previous contacts with the devil-doctor (currently believed dead after his yacht crashed in HAND). There are also other enigmatic personages hanging around the Egyptian dig-site. One of them is a sneaky-seeming Egyptian, who turns out to be Nayland Smith himself in disguise. Another is one Madame Ingomar, but Nayland Smith reveals that she is actually the daughter of Fu Manchu. For the first time Smith gives her the name "Fah Lo Suee," and he notes that his buddy Petrie met her once before (in HAND). Smith does not mention whether or not he personally has ever encountered the woman who, now just under thirty, qualifies as "the most dangerous woman living." (A later section also calls her a "superwoman," which is fitting since the first novel called her father a "superman.")
Rohmer does not revive the HAND plotline about how Fah was supposedly going to impersonate an immortal goddess out of Tibetan legend, but he does keep the idea that the doctor's daughter is going to try to mobilize an assortment of Eastern cults. Burmese dacoits were mentioned all through the first three books, but DAUGHTER is the first place to bring Indian Thuggee, Phansigars from Afghanistan, and the Arabic Hashishin under the umbrella of the Si-Fan, in addition to bringing back the Mandarin Ki-Ming from Book Three. In typical clueless-leading-man fashion, Greville stumbles into witnessing a Council-meeting, and though it's not clear whether or not Fah Lo Suee attempts to hoax the cult-members into thinking her a deity, Greville says that "she resembled an ivory statue of some Indian goddess. Indeed, as I watched, I knew she was Kali..." I'm pretty sure this novel is the first mention of Kali as well, though the early novels mention that the dacoits use a "call of Siva."
There are intimations that Fu Manchu, though elderly and infirm, is still alive. He doesn't do much until the novel's end, though it's possible that he makes it possible for Petrie to revive the not-quite-dead Barton. It turns out that the Egyptian tomb being investigated by Barton was an earlier haunt of Fu Manchu, and that the doctor stored therein a lot of chemicals and records, which, according to Smith, could give Fu-- or his daughter-- "control of practically all the fanatical seers of the East." Though Fah shows no signs of rebellion in HAND, here she's portrayed as a child of ambition, eager to supplant her father's reign over the Si-Fan.
But like Karameneh before her, Fah Lo Suee is a woman of chimerical passions, and she sets her sights on Greville. At one point she captures Greville, and makes clear that she can read his mind to some extent-- an ability later extended to Fu Manchu as well-- though Fah specifies that she can only read Greville's mind when he's weakened by the ordeal of capture. She plans to take him with her to China, and to keep him happy she's willing to take Rima along as well. However, at a point when she has Greville, Rima, and Smith in her power, Fu Manchu appears, upbraids her for her ambitions, and allows the Brits to go free, while making it clear that he'll be gone before they can return with police.
Karameneh, incidentally, only has a couple of appearances here, but Greville makes indirect acknowledgement of her beauty: "It is fortunate that modern man is unaffected by the Troy complex, for [Karameneh] was, I think, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life." Greville's never quite as fulsome in his praise of Fah Lo Suee, even in the "Indian goddess" passage, though it may be possible that he's somewhat overwhelmed by her superiority. The novel is not very well constructed, but I rate it as a mythic narrative for Rohmer's evocation of the devil-doctor's daughter, who has a plaintive side one never sees in her father:
I am as ready to be lied to as any other woman, Shan-- if only he tells his lies sweetly.
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