Encounter Darkness: Charles Williams, Fu Manchu, and the Problem of Shadows of Ecstasy
G. Connor SalterScholars are often confounded by Charles Williams’ novel Shadows of Ecstasy, which takes influence from Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu series to offer a supervillain so charismatic that he may be more antihero than villain. Exploring Rohmer's work and his place in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction shows how Williams builds on Rohmer while adding new concepts to the supervillains of Edwardian thrillers. While the result is curious, Williams cuts to the heart of genre debates that continue in crime fiction, and his treatment shows that Jared Lobdell was correct when he argues that Williams was an insightful crime fiction reader and writer. As supervillains have become freshly relevant in crime fiction, Shadows of Ecstasy proves to be a curiously prescient work that prompts useful questions today.