Dr. Teroni Tsarka is a nerve specialist and criminal mastermind who steals, with the help of a trained rat named Kezzio, a valuable cache of pure radium from a neighboring scientist, Prof. Eugene Moritz. The stolen radium (“the god in the pitchblende”) is traced back to Tsarka by Gifford Renwick (Renny), a 23-year old private detective on the payroll of the Anthony Coleman International Inquiry Bureau, after Scotland Yard turns up no leads. Embroiled in Tsarka’s scheme is his daughter Pepio Tsarka, her friend Soto Inouyiti, an artist, and Tsarka’s cruel bodyguard Horubu. Tsarka uses the radium to blind first Renwick, and then a cadre of art connoisseurs, all who must pay exorbitant fees for access to a cure by another Tsarka associate Beatrice Messonier at her Messonier Institute. Despite a Greek surname, Tsarka is described as a Japanese citizen living in London. He is the the main character of Albert Dorrington’s The Radium Terrors, a story concerned with British manners, reminiscent of Edith Wharton’s American variation. The novel employs racist stereotypes and verbiage to describe its characters of Asian and Jewish descent, including Tsarka as a “Yellow Peril” villain reminiscent of Fu Manchu.
Description Dr. Teroni Tsarka is a nerve specialist and criminal mastermind who steals, with the help of a trained rat named Kezzio, a valuable cache of pure radium from a neighboring scientist, Prof. Eugene Moritz. The stolen radium (“the god in the pitchblende”) is traced back to Tsarka by Gifford Renwick (Renny), a 23-year old private detective on the payroll of the Anthony Coleman International Inquiry Bureau, after Scotland Yard turns up no leads. Embroiled in Tsarka’s scheme is his daughter Pepio Tsarka, her friend Soto Inouyiti, an artist, and Tsarka’s cruel bodyguard Horubu. Tsarka uses the radium to blind first Renwick, and then a cadre of art connoisseurs, all who must pay exorbitant fees for access to a cure by another Tsarka associate Beatrice Messonier at her Messonier Institute. Despite a Greek surname, Tsarka is described as a Japanese citizen living in London. He is the the main character of Albert Dorrington’s The Radium Terrors, a story concerned with British manners, reminiscent of Edith Wharton’s American variation. The novel employs racist stereotypes and verbiage to describe its characters of Asian and Jewish descent, including Tsarka as a “Yellow Peril” villain reminiscent of Fu Manchu.
