Product Description

Three apparently separate investigations involving the New York City occult underground of covens, warlocks, tarot readers, faith healers, and palm readers dovetail into a single, explosive climax.

Product Description

The novel that radically altered the nature of the Mongo series, this book blends a classic detective style with elements of science fiction and fantasy. Chesboro takes readers on a wild roller-coaster ride, using the structure and elements of Wagner's Ring Cycle and Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings."

Comments from George C. Chesbro

Bleeding In The Eye Of A Brainstorm and Dream of a Falling Eagle were written under a two-book contract with Otto Penzler Books, which had a distribution arrangement with Simon & Schuster. When this arrangement fell apart, S&S ended up cntrolling many books that had been signed up, and they failed to publish many of them. I was lucky. It was also somewhat ironic that the last two Mongos ended up being published by the same company that had published the first three.

The genesis for Dream was an ongoing and abiding anger at the brutal regimes the US has supported, both overtly and covertly, over the years in pursuit of its own agenda.

The genesis for Bleeding was work I had done with very seriously mentally ill children (an experience described in Prism). Most of the powerful anti-psychotic medications these children must take have extreme and very unpleasant side effects. I just started thinking, "What if there were anti-psychotic medications that had unexpected, dramatic and arguably positive side effects?" and away I went.

Synopsis

Mama Spit just hasn't been herself lately. There used to be a time when she'd spew saliva at anyone who passed by her---even those who actually gave her money. And if her mouth was particularly dry that day, she'd at least acknowledge your presence by cursing from underneath her filthy blankets. Everyone knew that she was certifiably mad---including Dr. Robert Frederickson, more commonly known to the world as Mongo the Magnificent. Which is why the private investigator is so bewildered when Margaret Dutton---the former Mama Spit---appears before the Frederickson & Frederickson, Investigations offices one morning. She has no saliva to spew and no vulgarities to roar. She has come to thank him for his kindness and offer her help in his office. Abnormal behavior, indeed, from a madwoman. But Margaret has been transformed by a large black-and-yellow pill a stranger gave her just before he was brutally murdered. To Mongo, these pills are just another cheap street drug and the man another pusher---but to Margaret, these pills are her savior.

Thus begins George C. Chesbro's newest Mongo mystery. And things only get more complicated from here. As Mongo digs deeper, he unearths a conspiracy plot of immense proportions. He discovers that Margaret's savior was an escapee from Rivercliff, a home for the mentally ill. There dozens of patients were given an experimental drug. While the drug eased their insanity, withdrawal from the daily dosage was violent and lethal. But this isn't their most immediate problem---someone has hired professional assassins to scour New York City's streets, alleys, and shelters to find the escaped Rivercliff stragglers and kill them before the secret of the miracle pill is discovered.

Mongo the Magnificent has plenty of enemies and little time, but for the famous dwarf, ex-circus headliner, martial arts expert, and private eye, this is all in a day's work.

---From the dust jacket of the Simon & Schuster edition

From Publishers Weekly

Readers who enjoyed the first adventures (Shadow of a Broken Man, City of Whispering Stone) of professor Robert "Mongo" FredericksonPh.D. criminologist, ex-circus stuntman, dwarf and private eyemay be less than enchanted here. In a decade, Chesbro's style has changed from crisp and medium-boiled to garish, and his plot is replete with talky comic-book stunts. Mongo's brother Garth, in a comatose state because of a rare drug injected by mad scientist Siegmund Loge, seems to make a dramatic recovery in a top-secret government sanatorium. But Garth soon attracts a following that is convinced he's the Messiah. When Mongo is attacked by mysterious forces, Garth escapes with a homicidal maniac and surfaces in New York, heading a cult m that cares for the needy in an abandoned bathhouse. Determined to bring Garth back to reality, Mongo investigates the movement. A violent climax occurs on Christmas Eve, when all are threatened by murderous KGB agents. Only Chesbro's smooth writing saves this from total inanity, but the talkabout love, mankind and other heavy subjectsseems endless.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Garth's poisoning by a mysterious substance, combined with his experiences related in "The Beasts of Valhalla, " changes his personality, causing him to become estranged from Mongo and his family--and resulting in tens of thousands of people coming to believe that he is the promised messiah.

Product Description

Mongo becomes entangled in an international hunt for "the world's most dangerous terrorist, " whom Mongo comes to discover may not be at all what he appears to be.

Comments from George C. Chesbro

Bleeding In The Eye Of A Brainstorm and Dream of a Falling Eagle were written under a two-book contract with Otto Penzler Books, which had a distribution arrangement with Simon & Schuster. When this arrangement fell apart, S&S ended up cntrolling many books that had been signed up, and they failed to publish many of them. I was lucky. It was also somewhat ironic that the last two Mongos ended up being published by the same company that had published the first three.

The genesis for Dream was an ongoing and abiding anger at the brutal regimes the US has supported, both overtly and covertly, over the years in pursuit of its own agenda.

The genesis for Bleeding was work I had done with very seriously mentally ill children (an experience described in Prism). Most of the powerful anti-psychotic medications these children must take have extreme and very unpleasant side effects. I just started thinking, "What if there were anti-psychotic medications that had unexpected, dramatic and arguably positive side effects?" and away I went.

Synopsis

A purloined poem, a sinister voodoo ritual, an encrypted computer disk---what do these things have in common? How do they connect to a plot to assassinate the president and vice president of the United States? That's what Dr. Robert Frederickson, a.k.a. Mongo the Magnificent, and his brother, Garth, are trying to figure out in George C. Chesbro's wildest Mongo mystery yet.

Mongo is a dwarf, private detective, martial arts expert, ex-circus headliner, and criminologist. He and his brother are working on two separate cases---or so they think. In one, they are preparing a report as part of a special committee investigating illegal CIA activities in Haiti, a report that could put the Company permanently out of business. In the other, Moby Dickens---an ex-con sanitation worker whose girth nearly matches his namesake's---is having his poetry plagiarized. The trail in the first case leads Mongo and Garth to five brutally butchered bodies---all victims of voodoo ritual sacrifice. Surprisingly, the trail in the second case leads Mongo to the office of the ultra-conservative Speaker of the House of Representatives, William P. Kranes.

Mongo's cases collide when Moby's body is also found mutilated in the same ritual fashion. One step ahead of local police and the FBI, Mongo investigates the connections between his two cases and discovers a plot that will not only put him and his brother face-to-face with death, but will change the history of the United States forever.

---From the dust jacket of the Simon & Schuster edition