Mon 8 Sep 2025
From a longtime reader of the blog:
“I’ve been trying to track down the author and title of a book I read a couple of decades ago. It’s about…humanoid killer giant river otters. Set in South America, main character maybe an Anglo who gets a job running a plantation, probably by a British author, from the 1950s-1970s. Kind of a weird thriller. Does it ring a bell? It seems like a novel John Blackburn would have written, but it doesn’t seem to be in his bibliography.”
September 8th, 2025 at 9:51 pm
If I’d read this one, I’d have remembered it, but I didn’t, so I don’t. I can’t even add a cover image.
Any help with this one would be most greatly appreciated!
September 8th, 2025 at 10:45 pm
I think the book is Geoffrey Household’s Dance of the Dwarfs.
September 8th, 2025 at 10:52 pm
Thanks for the suggestion, Daniel. That was fast. Here’s a longish review of the book:
https://susanelkin.co.uk/articles/susans-bookshelves-the-dance-of-the-dwarfs-by-geoffrey-household/
It fits the timeline, and the author is a likely choice, but based on the review, I still can’t say for sure. Our inquirer will have to tell us.
September 9th, 2025 at 8:11 am
You’re welcome. While the linked review, being spoiler-free, is too vague to be conclusive, I can assure you that the novel matches the inquirer’s description in every particular, including the giant killer otters (or ‘mustelids’, as Household’s narrator calls them). That said, I can imagine someone of the Blackburn school writing a book of this type, so the question may have more than one answer.
September 9th, 2025 at 10:21 am
I concur with Daniel. I read Household’s Dance of the Dwarves some time ago, but I do remember the giant otters. I also remember it was a pretty strange story, but captivating.
September 9th, 2025 at 8:14 pm
I’m convinced. Not a doubt at all. Thanks for the assistance, guys!
September 10th, 2025 at 12:02 am
See also: Wilson Harris, ‘The Guyana Quartet’
September 10th, 2025 at 12:07 am
New to me. All I read are simple detective stories. (But not simple-minded ones.) Thanks!
https://www.themodernnovel.org/americas/other-americas/guyana/harris/guyana/
September 12th, 2025 at 11:22 pm
There is also a disappointing film of the novel with Peter Fonda.
September 13th, 2025 at 12:26 pm
DANCE OF THE DWARFS (1983)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085396/reference/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_t_1
“An anthropologist hires a down-on-his-luck helicopter pilot to fly her into the jungle, where she is searching for a scientist who is investigating reports of a tribe of reptile-men.”
With Deborah Raffin, Peter Fonda, John Amos.
September 13th, 2025 at 2:37 am
DANCE was a bestseller as were many Household titles over the years from ROGUE MALE to A ROUGH SHOOT and FELLOW PASSENGER to WATCHER BY THE THRESHOLD and THE COURTESEY OF DEATH. Nor was DANCE by any means his only venture into SF/Fantasy/Horror with THE SENDING being named one of the 100 best Fantasy/Horror Novels of all time.
Household also tackled a Dystopian Future novel late in his career and a nuclear terror tale. Fellow Brit Thriller/Adventure writer Victor Canning also delved into SF with FINGERS OF SATURN while Hammond Innes flirted with horror in THE LEVKAS MAN and near SF and other writers like Ian Cameron, Alistair MacLean, David Walker, Philip McCutchan, Geoffrey Jenkins, the above mentioned John Blackburn, and of course Ian Fleming all blended elements in as had John Buchan, Edgar Wallace, John Creasey, and others ahead of them.