What are you reading in January 2018?

I’m currently reading Sax Rohmer’s Brood of the Witch-Queen (1918), a wacky thriller that I’m enjoying. I put off reading Rohmer for ages after hearing that his work was unreadable, racist, ludicrous, badly-plotted—ehh, kerflooey with all that! Rohmer’s not a great writer, but the book is really fun and silly, exactly the sort of thing I like: fast-paced, eclectic, heroic, a bit like early Fleming, if Bond were ever to fight the supernatural. This is what I was expecting when I picked up Dennis Wheatley’s The Devil Rides Out, but Wheatley’s prose is as dry as straw. The romance is well-done—rather close to R. Austin Freeman.

I can’t comment on Fu Manchu, though—this one doesn’t feature him—though I have seen and greatly enjoyed the ’32 film adaptation.

P.S. Judging from Rohmer’s picture on Wikipedia, the man harbored a desire to be William Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes!