Fire-Tongue

Fire-Tongue is the 1921 mystery thriller that English writer Sax Rohmer (Arthur Ward) credited to his friend, Harry Houdini. Rohmer plotted the challenge like a trap set by his best-known creation, the diabolical Dr. Fu Manchu. The prolific author set up the perfect crime with no idea how to solve it, and worked the case himself along with his fictional detective, Paul Harley. In Fire-Tongue, Harley sees a man die at the dinner table. (Something in the soup?) The detective's "uncanny sixth sense" tells him it was murder. But he can't prove it, let alone catch the killer. The trouble was, neither could Rohmer. And the story already had started running as a magazine serial! As Rohmer told it, he was desperately stumped when the magician and escape artist Houdini appeared at his door. Houdini slipped him - what else? - the secret way out. The story continues with all the clues, exotic suspects, slinky gowns, disguises, chases and resolutions that Rohmer's fans expected, and still find, in his fantastical fiction.