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!