QUICK SHOTS: Mongo #8: The Language of Cannibals by George C. Chesbro

Many moons (and suns) ago when I was in high school and devouring as many private eye novels as I could get my hands on, I stumbled onto a book called Shadow of a Broken Man by a fellow named George C. Chesbro starring a dwarf college professor/ex-circus performer/karate expert/private eye named Dr. Robert Frederickson aka Mongo the Magnificent. Surely, such a book would be a jokey B-movie of a book. Surely, it is not. It was one of the first time I read a book through in one sitting. It was an odd book for sure; I wasn't in calm waters. This was choppy waters full of KGB agents, conspiracies and telekinesis. I loved it and purchased every Mongo adventure I found in my bookstore travels. 

The Mongo books are wonderfully weird. Usually there are full of action, sometimes a supernatural element or government conspiracy or a mix of the two, a solid smack of hard-bitten action and some great bickering dialog between Mongo and Garth, his over-sized NYPD detective brother, which borders on some sort of Men's Adventure-Hard-Boiled Mystery version of "cozy." Their simply characters you want to hang around with and as a cherry on top they go on crazy adventures.

The Language of Cannibals finds Mongo in a small town on the Hudson River investigating the death of his FBI agent friend. It's a mystery so of course, it was a murder. This is one of the tamer-plots I've encountered in a Mongo book, just involving communist sleeper agents, incognito KGB assassins, roaming right-wing death squads roaming the streets, 60s folk singers, that's full of coffee-drinking, car chases, a gunfight or two and some plenty of art, political and social conversations. Like any good private eye Mongo takes his licks and keeps on going until the mystery is unraveled.

Overall, it's not the strongest of the Mongo books, but still a wild ride. By this point in the series Chesbro had tamped down the farther-out supernatural plots (i.e. sorcerers and the like) and just played around on the weirder side of life.  Chesbro got a talky style, but the action is told well, and I enjoy all his characters talking so it's a win for me. I picked this up wondering if it'd have a little more spookiness to it (tis the Halloween season after all), but it didn't. I might have to crack open another Chesbro before too long though. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

The Charlie Hardie Trilogy by Duane Swierczynski

Back when I followed newer crime fiction, one of the underdog names I kept hearing about was Duane Swierczynski. He was mixed in with folks like Charlie Hutson, Jason Starr and the like. I was more dutifully checking out new (as in still alive and producing authors) back then and I read Duane's book Secret Dead Man and dug it. As this sort of thing goes, I missed his next several books but swung back around when his Charlie Hardie trilogy launched. I kept up with the first two books in the series, Fun and Games and then Hell and Gone and then, as these things go, I missed getting around to the third and final book Point and Shoot. Such as life. 

But I always meant to get back to it, since I dug what had happened so far. Then time past and I got to thinking that I would probably need to reread the first two to read the last one and then more times passed as I procrastinated on that. Then I found myself (as I often am) in my public library looking at the Duane Swierczynski books. All three of them were sitting there. I knew I owned the first two but didn't know if I ever bought the third. Short story shorter all three came home to me. I took Fun and Games on a little movie-maker trip to talk to a director about a film I'm writing for him and BANG I was back in the world of Charlie Hardie and the Accident People. The first book got finished quick, the second one quickly and the third was quickest.

The trilogy plays with our expectations of PULP. Pulp films, pulp fiction, pulp life. Theres one-eyes lady assassins, James-Bond style gadgets, impregnable prisons, spaceships, evil lawyers, gunfights, fistfights, serial killers, movie references, car chases, dogged FBI agents, some Face/Off action, conspiracies galore and even a Sherlock Holmes-type cop. The trilogy is pure pulp, with some extra pulp on the side and maybe, just maybe a sprinkling of some heart. Each book takes a different sort of approach to the story, the first being a fairly standard "thriller" type of book, the second tackling "prison" books and the third sort of being a "buddy cop" action flick with conspiracies. 

The Charlie Hardie books star, uh, Charlie Hardie. A former Philly PD "fixer" who is seemingly unkillable (more on that later) as he gets involved with The Accident People, a group of people who "manage" real-world "narratives." Basically, they make problems go away. Through murder, manipulation, and other conspiracy stuff. They are the "they" whenever someone like Randy Quaid is out there saying "they are killing celebrities," or the like. They are the ultimate "they." And Charlie is the ultimate action-hero-everyman. Sure, he's tough as nails and too stubborn to die (hey, who isn't?) he's also haunted by past failures and dedicated to protecting his now hidden family. 

Fun and Games finds Charlie as a high-level house sitter going to L.A. to watch a movie composer's place. Charlie's plan involves old movies and drinking booze to forget his past failures. It doesn't include a movie star actress who miraculously survived the first attempt on her life by The Accident People or the gunplay, fire, topless-lady threats and going on the run. Fun and Games is the most straight forward of the books, it works like a lot of thriller novels you've (if your reading this blog) have read. It's an introduction. A clammy handshake to let you know what wonders and thrills await you for the weirder shit that's about to happen. It's also pure adrenaline. It starts at 10, pushes to 11 and keeps going. Everyone is a colorful character and the thrills and chills abound. 

Where do you go after a book like that? You go to Hell and Gone. where the vast, evil conspiracy has trapped you, as in Charlie Hardie in an unknown prison with unpredictable guards. You, as in Charlie, have been beaten, shot and generally mangled from your first go-around with The Accident People and now time is past. You're weakened and confused and locked in hell. This is also the 2nd chapter in a trilogy, so a little more information is dulled out, and a little more set-up is put forward. The Accident People are The Cabal (among other things), and they got you, as in Charlie, by the balls. If you were a smart man you might give up, but fuck 'em, you seem to be Charlie Hardie now and you say "I'll kill 'em all." So, you set-out to break yourself free to save your family, find unlikely allies and avoid dying some more. And for you Men's Adventure-aficionados I got some vibes from Doug Masters' TNT series here, maybe it was just the prison-deathtraps.

Which lead you to Point and Shoot, where you (Charlie) find yourself in space "guarding" a little spaceship full of The Accident People/The Cabal's secret and who should show up? You, a clone or a man made to look like you and you crash your spaceship and go on a buddy-adventure to save the family and fuck up shit for The Accident People/The Cabal. Guns are shot, old scores are settled, identities are questions, conspiracy people are paranoid, killers go serial. It's all very thrilling and fast paced.

To tell you more would ruin some surprises. 

All I'll say is that when strung together as one long tome, the Charlie Hardie trilogy is a FUCKING blast, man. It scratched an itch that my lizard brain really needed, that my writer brain has been trying to disect and opened my eyes to how things can be done. If you dig the sort of things I review here, that is action stuff, thriller stuff, fun stuff, then you'll love the Charlie Hardie books. I liked the first two when I read them, now I love them all. It's gotten me to buy all the remained books by Swierczynski I've missed and now I'm champing at the bit to read them. 

Swierczynski also works in the James Patterson mines and now I'm real interested to take a look at one of those and see how the style matches up. Stuff like the Charlie Hardie books and Secret Dead Man don't seem to line up with Patterson and his stuff, but then again, I haven't read a James Patterson in decades at this point, save his terrible Shadow novel. But if Duane Swierczynski's name is on a book, I'm now purchasing. Fan for life.

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!