Fu Manchu heads the Si-Fan, an international criminal organization and a pan-Asian gang of murderers recruited from the "darkest places of the East". The plots of the novels feature the recurring scene of Fu Manchu despatching assassins (usually Chinese or Indian) to kill Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie. In the course of adventure, Nayland-Smith and Petrie are surrounded by murderous colored men, Rohmer's Yellow Peril metaphor for Western trespass against the East. In the context of the Fu Manchu series, and Shiel's influence, reviewer Jack Adrian described Sax Rohmer as a