Sat 8 Aug 2015
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: GEORGE C. CHESBRO – Dark Chant in a Crimson Key.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
GEORGE C. CHESBRO – Dark Chant in a Crimson Key. Mongo the Dwarf #11. Mysterious Press, hardcover, April 1992; paperback, May 1993.
Och, Mongo, ah harrdly knew ye. This is the eleventh book about Dr. Bob Frederickson, aka Mongo the Dwarf, his brother Garth, and other assorted characters who pop up now and again. I’m not going to keep you in suspense: it’s not much. Chesbro’s tales of the dwarf detective just keep getting sillier and sillier.
Mongo is hired by a philanthropic foundation to go to Switzerland and report on a recent swindle that’s cost them 10 mil. The criminal is reported to be John Sinclair, aka “Chant,” (a character in three books written by Chesbro as [a villain] who is supposedly hemmed up in Switzerland by a police net).
Chant is (oh, yes) the ultimate ninja. Mongo is warned by various agencies and individuals (including his own version of Robert E. Parker’s Hawk, Veil Kendry) to stay out of it all, but doesn’t, natch. There are secret Oriental societies, deadly drugs, mystic rites, torture, and more, more, more! It’s a bummer, folks. Really. Bad stuff.
The sad thing is that Chesbro can be and has been a very capable writer. There was room in the field for a different sort of PI, one who handled cases that slanted a tad toward the unbelievable, and in the first few books Mongo and brother Garth were both enjoyable and not too far removed from reality for some of us to relate to.
No longer the case, I’m afraid. I don’t know how you’d classify the series now; I guess, he said reluctantly, as unreadable. ’bye, Mongo. ’bye, George.
August 9th, 2015 at 4:23 am
I enjoyed the Mongo series and this attempt to tie together all of Chesbro’s other books and series was fun for those of us who had read the Chant and Kendry books as well.
Silly? Well, he did do one that was basically LORD OF THE RINGS and another with a crypto werewolf and at least one had Mongo’s brother as a messiah, but overall I read them in the spirit of Modesty Blaise and enjoyed the time with the crew.
I can see what Barry disliked, but I found the books fun and only missed one or two at series end through no fault of Chesbro’s.
August 9th, 2015 at 9:21 am
Mongo must have had enough diehard fans for his career in print to have lasted as long as it did. I read one of the early ones, and while it was OK I remember thinking that “this was a little weird.” Apparently that was before his adventures became really weird. I bought a few more of them as they came out but I don’t remember reading another one.
August 9th, 2015 at 6:12 pm
The first three are more or less straight thrillers with weird elements like esp. Then the series gets weirder. Probably the best book is THE SECOND HORSEMAN OUT OF EDEN, at least I think that was the title, which is the LOTR title.
Chesbro worked with children who had problems, and the best of the books often pit Mongo and Garth in cases that involve such children as HORSEMAN does.
HORSEMAN is a splendid thriller and surprisingly involving with a Gollum type character who is both frightening and moving. It is not an ordinary mystery thriller, but then again Mongo is not an ordinary character, but if you like LOTR you might enjoy this one. It is a bit of a tour de force just to pull off a thriller modeled on LOTR and Chesbro does it with style.