Son of the Flying Tiger — Marshall Macao

Very first in a legendary series of novels, detailing the birth and training of Chong Fei K'ing, Son of The Flying Tiger, orphaned in China and immersed in the martial arts from an early age. K'ing earns his name with his fists, and finds one great enemy, Kak, his brother, inside the classroom. These books were published by the immortal Maurice Girodias, founder of the Olympia Press, after that firm's second bankruptcy in the early '70s. Girodias was known to get the very best from his authors, despite not ever paying them much, and thus these works, genre writing to be sure, but among the finest titles ever to feature the phrase "monkey fist."