The Dr Nikola Omnibus. Vol. 1

The criminal mastermind and 'man of mystery'. Doctor Nikola is an occultist anti-hero seeking immortality and world domination. First introduced in the first episode of A Bid for Fortune, Nikola lives in a bungalow on the Rue de Lafayette in Shanghai with his perennial companion, the black cat Apollyon (named after a dark angel) - huge, baleful, gleaming-eyed - perched on Nikola's shoulder. A Bid for Fortune, or Enter Dr Nikola begins with the narrator's attempts to wed a beautiful woman he saves from ruffians in Australia while travelling back with her father on the same ship he is taking to England. Dr Nikola is the villain, the Svengali like figure, exercising his influence. In the next novel, Dr Nikola, he is now foregrounded much more and enlists Wilfred Bruce into his quest for deeper knowledge and magic powers in China. Boothby is a natural storyteller who can sustain a gripping narrative.