I just read my first pulp novel called The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu, by Sax Rohmer. It is available free on Project Gutenberg. You can get the summary at Wikipedia.

Basically the book is a casually racist Sherlock Holmes or James Bond adventure, and a lot of fun if you ignore the racism. The book follows two loyal servants of the British Empire trying to stop a super-villain agent (Dr Fu) of the impending ‘Yellow Peril‘. What amused me about the whole ‘fearing the mysterious East’ thing is Germany is described as an ally against the East for its involvement in the Boxer Rebellion. Too bad the book was published in 1913, a year before Germany starts the First World War. Talk about misplaced fears!

There are several sequels, starting with The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, which I’m starting on now.