Bat Wing

Paul Harley #1

by Sax Rohmer

Paul Harvey PI and British Empire political consultant, chats in his office with pal Knox. Colonel Juan Menendez shows them a bat wing someone left for him, and claims someone, seen only as a shadow, watches him. Harvey is plunged into a world of voodoo, vampires and murder, from the creator of super-villain Dr Fu Manchu.

Genres: Mystery, Horror, Fiction, Classics, Crime, Pulp, Audiobook

470 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

AKA Arthur Sarsfield Ward (real name); Michael Furey.

Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (15 February 1883 - 1 June 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, Rohmer initially pursued a career as a civil servant before concentrating on writing full-time.

He worked as a poet, songwriter, and comedy sketch writer in Music Hall before creating the Sax Rohmer persona and pursuing a career writing weird 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 physician and family friend, Dr. R. Watson Councell may have been his only legitimate connection to such organizations. It is believed that Rohmer may have exaggerated his association in order to boost his literary reputation as an occult writer.

His first published work came in 1903, when the short story The Mysterious Mummy was sold to Pearson's Weekly. 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 novel Pause! anonymously in 1910. After penning Little Tich in 1911 (as ghostwriter for the Music Hall entertainer) he issued the first Fu Manchu novel, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, was serialized from October 1912 - June 1913. It was an immediate success with its fast-paced story of Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie facing the worldwide conspiracy of the 'Yellow Peril'. The Fu Manchu stories, together with his more conventional detective series characters—Paul Harley, Gaston Max, Red Kerry, Morris Klaw, and The Crime Magnet—made Rohmer one of the most successful and well-paid authors of the 1920s and 1930s.

Rohmer also wrote several novels of supernatural horror, including Brood of the Witch-Queen. Rohmer was very poor at managing his wealth, however, and made several disastrous business decisions that hampered him throughout his career. His final success came with a series of novels featuring a female variation on Fu Manchu, Sumuru.

After World War II, the Rohmers moved to New York only returning to London shortly before his death. Rohmer died in 1959 due to an outbreak of influenza ("Asian Flu").

There were thirteen books in the Fu Manchu series in all (not counting the posthumous The Wrath of Fu Manchu. The Sumuru series consist of five books.

His wife published her own mystery novel, Bianca in Black in 1954 under the pen name, Elizabeth Sax Rohmer. Some editions of the book mistakenly credit her as Rohmer's daughter. Elizabeth Sax Rohmer and Cay Van Ash, her husband's former assistant, wrote a biography of the author, Master of Villainy, published in 1972.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

The review from afar – No. 16

Re-revised forward to these overseas reviews:
Since emulating a yo-yo, I continue to rely on the old-style Kindle 3G for any non-technical reading. I tip my hat to the fine folks at Project Gutenberg: virtually every title I have or will be reading in the near future comes from them.

Bat-Wing is the second novel published (by a month or so, but the first for the character) starring Mr. Paul Harley, private investigator. Also written in 1921 it takes place entirely within England. In it we see Harley and his companion and confidant doing a standard Holmes-and-Watson routine with the Watson stand-in providing the usual narration.

For this tale Rohmer turns his attention not to the Orient, but to the Americas. His evil comes from those rites and forces that we call voodoo. While it doesn’t have the showiness of the Bond flick, he builds up the importance and terror slowly and implacably as the story develops.

The heart of the story is set in the English countryside where a foreign recluse lives next to (well, nearby on an adjacent plot) the only other people within miles who also came from the same island home. (Our evil protagonist isn’t an islander, but he lived there for decades.) There is a surfeit of suspects, more than a few red herrings, the bumbling associate, and an almost criminally inept police force. In classical English detective style, Harley understands what others see but do not and gets to the truth beneath a bitter act of vengeance.

This is probably the better written and more interesting of the two Harley novels. First because it does employ the Holmes-and-Watson shtick (but it is not a pastiche, at least not in the usual sense) and second because the mystery is a better one. (I also liked the poor fool who is set up to take the fall.) Certainly it is the one I liked better. I enjoyed watching Harley at work much in the same way I enjoy the World’s Greatest Consulting Detective. Oh, and it has the three “Vs”: Voodoo, Vengeance, and Vampire Bats!

Three and one-half (3.5) well-earned Stars.

You can get this book for free from the Gutenberg Project site.

[Scott Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

This started off slowly but turned into an interesting book. It ended up being a murder mystery along the lines of Sherlock Holmes. If you can get through the beginning, it will get better.

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Sax Rohmer is far better known for his supervillain Fu Manchu novels, one could argue that he should also be lauded for his mystery, detective novels. Bat Wing is the first of three Private Investigator Paul Harley books (the last is a compilation of short stories). The trilogy is thematically uniform with supernatural and horror elements woven throughout.

Paul Harley is a PI in England who has a friend (Knox) visiting with him when a potential client, Col. Juan Menendez, enters his office. The Colonel is a Spaniard from Cuba who feels that someone has set their voodoo skills to cause him harm. Harley and Knox are skeptical but sufficiently intrigued to accept an invitation to stay at the Colonel's home. Paul Harley was not aware that the case would be his "potential Waterloo" with the macabre staring him right in the face.

The classic mystery is well-told, with numerous unique elements such as voodoo mysticism, vampire bats, and the international flare of a spy novel. Harley and Knox play the paradigmatic Holmes and Watson roles with staid aplomb. There's an ample number of red herrings to throw the reader off a particular scent, although I would also claim that the person you would think did it, may be exactly who you thought. This may have been a surprise 100 years ago, but probably not now.

I really enjoyed Bat Wing and have decided I need more Sax Rohmer in my life. I think we all do. His work is available for free on Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

(From my Amazon.com review):

Early 20th Century Sensation Novel

There's a lot more to Sax Rohmer than his Fu Manchu novels. Some years back, I bought a cache of Rohmer's books published by A.L. Burt in the teens and twenties, some from the Fu Manchu series, but others with delightfully lurid titles such as The Golden Scorpion, The Green Eyes of Bast, and The Dream Detective, the latter featuring the wondrous Moris Klaw, a blind detective with extra-sensory powers.

From time to time I dip into this reservoir for a completely escapist read. These novels, despite being dated and notoriously full of racial stereotypes, fairly pop off the page. Rohmer knew how to spin a yarn, and Bat Wing is no exception. The tale involves a haughty Spanish colonel and a secret too dark, too deep, to divulge. Rohmer's detective hero, Paul Harvey, is in the mold of Sherlock Holmes, and of course he has a trusted friend (who doubles as the narrator much as Dr. Watson does). Together they unravel the mystery, encountering voodoo rites, vampire bats, an Edgar Allen Poe-esque writer, and other fantastic developmentss en route to the sensational ending.

[Julie Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

#94 - 2010

"OFTEN enough my memory has recaptured that moment in Paul Harley's office, when Harley, myself, and the tall Spaniard stood looking down at the bat wing lying upon the blotting pad."

Sax Rohmer, better known as the creator of Fu Manchu, has a cracking good yarn in this tale of the American detective who is asked to unravel a voodoo mystery threatening Colonel Menendez. Traveling to Menendez's home in England, the plot just keeps getting thicker as we meet the members of his household, suspicious neighbors, and see signs of the bat everywhere we turn.

I began listening to this on LibriVox last summer and dropped it when I got too busy. I've picked it up again, free, from Amazon on the Kindle and am having a jolly good time finishing it up.

Update: Finished it up as it grabbed me by the throat in the end of the investigation. I actually had figured out who a main player was, but the author completely had me fooled about the main thrust of the crime. Really a great book and I'll be reading the sequel soon.

[Gretchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Bat Wing for what it was: a pulp era mystery with overtones of voodoo, Sherlock Holmes, and Edgar Allan Poe. It's pretty slow reading, however. If you like pulp fiction, and especially if you like Sax Rohmer, then give Bat Wing a try. I'd read it again someday.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 1920's detective story introducing Paul Harley as the premier private criminal investigator in London. A Colonel Menendez from Cuba hires Harley because he fears his life is in danger. This is partly due to the fact that he has been shot at several times and because a bat wing was nailed to his door, but mostly because a bat wing was nailed to his door. Harley and his companion Knox go to Menendez's estate to investigate and meet his charming female guests. All is not right and a sense of foreboding permeates the place.

This is a well written detective story and Rohmer creates an atmosphere of impending doom without any actual doomish things happening. Paul Harley is clearly a copycat character, and he is like Deadpool; he knows that he is a fictional character and mentions often that he is just a poor substitute for Edgar Allen Poe's Auguste Dupin. Edgar Allen Poe figures heavily here as the main suspect is his twin both physically and intellectually. For much of the book I was reminded of a particular Alfred Hitchcock movie, but half way through an encounter by the sundial changed the whole tenor of the story. After that is became a more straightforward yet complicated issue.

A modern CSI unit could have solved this case in about 5 minutes, allowing that they would have to be versed in 1920 British gentry. Such clues include whether the man was dressed for dinner or dressed for tea, and hand rolled cigarettes. False clues abound and important ones are overlooked by the local constable, enjoyably described as having the looks of a walrus without the brains of one. The constant outrage of Harley and Knox at being insulted and lied to is funny, as they seem on the verge of challenging several people to a duel. They are extremely aware of their personal honor, and the fact that Menendez and others know more than they will tell offend them mightily. Only because Menendez claims the secrets themselves are a matter of honor can placate them.

A really nice period piece, I will be reading more of Paul Harley.

[Frank McAdam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1920, Bat Wing was a blatant attempt to cash in on the popularity of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. For all that, though, Rohmer's novel is a fine story in its own right, one that holds up well against its better known competition. The plot is clever and keeps the reader guessing until the end. The characters, including the detective Harley and his Watson-like amanuensis Knox, are all well drawn and of distinctly different types. Finally, there is just enough flavor of the supernatural to add spice to the murder mystery, and the story is in this respect somewhat reminiscent of what Doyle achieved in the Hound of the Baskervilles.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars is perhaps a bit too much but Bat-Wing is nevertheless an entertaining read. As a mystery it is less a whodunnit and more seeing how the author once laying out all the edges of the jigsaw puzzle fills in the middle. And the filling in is the fun here with aristocratic Spaniards, dramatic French, Englishmen with extra starch in their upper lips, and, yes, some far less appealing stereotyping of non-Europeans. Recommended for a rainy day that needs a mystery and a pot of tea.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have fondness for adventure and detective fiction from this era. I am more familiar with this author's Fu Manchu stories, but this tale was thoroughly enjoyable. It is also fun to go back and read just to get the feel for how the genre has changed.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good Sax Rohmer yarn, voodoo in a small English village. However I prefer Rohmer more when the mystic elements in his books are real. Although the book is better written than many of his works it is a little slow, but with admittedly a great start and conclusion.

[Per · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6382

I read this mainly because its relation to The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft and Skull-Face by Robert E. Howard, see: http://thecimmerian.com/2009/02/11/th... & http://thecimmerian.com/2009/02/19/th...

There's one direct quote from another book in this novel...

According to Hesketh J. Bell, the term Obeah is most probably derived from the substantive Obi, a word used on the East coast of Africa to denote witchcraft, sorcery, and fetishism in general. The etymology of Obi has been traced to a very antique source, stretching far back into Egyptian mythology. A serpent in the Egyptian language was called Ob or Aub. Obion is still the Egyptian name for a serpent. Moses, in the name of God, forbade the Israelites ever to enquire of the demon, Ob, which is translated in our Bible: Charmer or wizard, divinator or sorcerer. The Witch of Endor is called Oub or Ob, translated Pythonissa; and Oubois was the name of the basilisk or royal serpent, emblem of the Sun and an ancient oracular deity of Africa.

...which is quoted verbatim from page 6 of Hesketh's 1893 book "Obeah, Witchcraft in the West Indies", available here: https://repository.library.northeaste...

Hesketh in turn seems to have relied heavily on John Bathurst Deane and his 1830 book "Worship of the Serpent"...

The word obeah may be the feminine adjective of the substantive obi, which, in the native language of the negroes, signifies a CHARM. By means of this charm the professors of Obi, who were all natives of Africa, held their unhappy votaries in such awe, that against whomsoever the charm was laid, or as they termed it, "obi was set," that person invariably became the victim of his own horror, and died a miserable death. The usual practice was to set this charm (which consisted of several ingredients mixed up into the form of a cake) at the door, or in the path of the victim, who having once fixed his eyes upon it, rarely recovered from the shock. An irresistible horror overcame him in an instant; a gradual decay of mind and body ensued, and a few days sufficed to carry him to his grave.
From these premises we may conjecture what relation the Obeah-worship bears to the Ophiolatreia of the ancients. The origin of the terms OBEAH and OBI may be traced to the Cauaanitish superstition of the OB or OUB, which Bryant has so ingeniously detected in his remarks upon the witch of Endor.
"The woman at Endor," observes Bryant, "who had a familiar spirit, is called אוב, Oub, or Ob; and it is interpreted Pythonissa. The serpent was also in the Egyptian language called Ob or Aub. We are told by Horus Apollo, that the basilisk, or royal serpent, was named oubaios: it should have been rendered oubos for oubaios is a possessive, and not a proper name." Oubos is, therefore, the name of the serpent Oub, with a Greek termination--a practice universally adopted by Grecian writers, when speaking of foreign appellatives. Besides, Kircher remarks, that Obion is still, among the people of Egypt, the name of a serpent. "The same occurs in the Coptic Lexicon." OBION, in its original signification, was a sacred title, applied to the solar god, who was symbolized by the serpent OB. It is compounded of OB and ON. ON is a title of the SUN--thus the city of ON, in Egypt, was called by the Greeks Heliopolis.
It is observable, that the woman of Endor is called Oub or Ob; and she was applied to as oracular. [...]

Oboes;--that the word oboes implies worshippers of OB;--and lastly, that OBONI is no other than the OPHION of Phœnicia, and the OBION of Egypt; each of which was a title of the same solar god, who was symbolized by the serpent OB. Hence there is room for one of these two inferences; that the Gold Coast was either colonized from Canaan, or from Egypt: the former of which is perhaps the more probable, from the greater facility afforded to the Phœnicians by navigation than to the Egyptians, who would have to cross deserts, and overcome many other physical difficulties in their distant march. The period at which this emigration took place, must be referred to a very remote age, not only because of the totally distinct physical characteristics of the Negroes, but also of the simplicity of their worship. They had neither the multitudinous host of the Egyptian Pantheon, nor the absorbing adoration of the Syrian goddess: they had neither mythology nor image-worship; but preserved the simple, original veneration of the serpent in his living form. The name of the evil deity, OBONI, it is true, indicates a relation to the solar worship; but as they had neither obelisks nor pyramids, nor any of the other adjuncts of this peculiar religion, it is probable that the name OBONI was introduced at a later period. However that may be, it is certain that the worship of the serpent prevailed in this part of Africa from the earliest times.
-- https://sacred-texts.com/etc/wos/wos0...

...which is available here: https://sacred-texts.com/etc/wos/inde...

[margaret chalmers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dusty wing.

One of the author's lesser stories. Be warned it is seriously dated in its attitudes to other races and women. This was written in the era when to be white, English or American and male was considered to be a superior being. Acutely embarrassing for today's thinking but we cannot rewrite history. Once you get over that this is a competent tale. A wealthy man of Spanish Cuban descent has retired to a remote part of England. He is in poor health and in fear of his life from members of a voodoo cult. He approaches a stalwart sun bronzed English gentleman who advises governments and private folk on problems. Your quintessential know-it-all English detective. Complete with dim but nice assistant. Together they go to a creepy country house awaiting a sinister full moon and death on bat wings. Ooooh! There are interesting characters and I have to admit it was only near the end I worked out an important plot device. Reasonable dialogue and in its day it would have been a thriller. Today? An interesting look into the past. I have read worse from present day writers. So, a lukewarm recommendation, but not a waste of time...in my opinion.

[Bhakta Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I was hoping for with this book was a breathless adventure like Rohmer's Fu Manchu novels, hopefully with less racism. What I got was a murder mystery where it takes half the book to get the murder done, a lot of discussion of voodoo, a crime with an obvious suspect where the detective is convinced that the suspect is not guilty and must prove it, (kind of like the premise of the movie A Shot In the Dark, except without the laughs), and an ending that depends on information we get only in the last chapters.

The racism is toned down, but still present.

[Benjamin Chandler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, though tedious at times, a murder mystery where the murder doesn't take place until the book is already half finished. I confess I started the novel under the assumption there was a supernatural element to the mystery, but there really wasn't. Voodoo symbolism does factor into the story, but there's no spells, no magic, no sorcery. Just dread, murder, and mystery, in that order.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colonel Menendiz convinced that he is under a voodoo spell asks Paul Hartley and Malcolm Knox to visit him at his home at Gray's Folly. As he found a bat's wing pinned to his door and other incidents. And previously he had been attacked several times, he connects this to the shooting by him of a high priest of voodoo.
An entertining historical mystery
Originally published in 1920

[Cognatious Thunk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feb. 2025 - narrated by Mark Nelson on LibriVox
This book is an exemplar for why I binge authors. There is an unfortunate tendency for readers to confound the ideologies represented in books with the beliefs of their authors. I committed this transgression, too. Mislead by the frequent statements within the Fu Manchu series that the mysterious Chinaman was "the enemy of the white race," coupled with statements I'd heard in reference to Rohmer, I presumed, like many others, that Rohmer dreaded the so-called "yellow peril." This book throws that misguided assumption on its head, by presenting Ah Tsong as one of the most noble characters in the novel, notwithstanding his hackneyed Pidgin. True, Rohmer simply replaced his Chinese stereotypes with a wicked Spaniard and a loose-moraled Frenchwoman, but I realized through listening to this book that, like most thrillers, characters are caricatured for gripping effect, rather than in earnest condemnation of their race or sex. Rohmer is best when you are in the mood for a campy, Gothic read/listen.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 3 out of 5]

older style of pulp, great ending.

[Ben Franklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read, not as exciting as the Fu Manchu books, but pleasant enough for casual reading. Nice (if a bit transparent) plot twist at the end...

[Naticia]

DNF - racism.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad mystery, great ending.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bat Wing is a nicely done procedural novel that includes hints of voodoo and Sherlock Holmes. The mystery is complex and the clues misleading. A good story with an unexpected perpetrator.

The LibriVox recording by Mark Nelson is excellent.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another libricox.org podcast. Nice voodoo tale. Found out the source of obi/obeah. As in Obi-Wan Kenobi?

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

A complex mystery from the turn of the last century, but without the quota of scary foreigners, despite the bat wing of the title.

[for-much-deliberation ...]

Colonel Menendez has enemies and in the midst of obeah, voodoo, vampirism, and a murder, detective Paul Harley and his friend Knox try to solve the mystery...

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book features a Sherlock Holmes-like detective and his sidekick. Neither of them are very interesting.

[Neil Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a pleasure to get back to a good old pulp detective tale from Sax Rohmer. Wonderful, gripping read.

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

read some time in 1990

[Cindy B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free etext at Gutenberg.org
Free Audio at librivox.org
Classic

[ChrisBook · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was...interesting. The ending: craaaaazy!