Dark Chant in a Crimson Key

Mongo #11

by George C. Chesbro

A cranky philanthropist hires Dr. Robert "Mongo" Frederickson to help solve a case in Switzerland in which a dangerous Ninja con man is depleting the funds of an organization that sends medical aid to third world countries

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Adventure, Suspense

217 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1992

About the author

George C. Chesbro was an American author of detective fiction. His most notable works feature Dr. Robert "Mongo the Magnificent" Fredrickson, a private detective with dwarfism. He also wrote the novelization of The Golden Child, a movie of the same name starring Eddie Murphy.

Chesbro was born in Washington, D.C. He worked as a special education teacher at Pearl River and later at rockland Psychiatric Center, where he worked with trouble teens. Chebro was married and had one daughter and two step-daughters.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun but ultimately disappointing, since 30% of the story seems to be nothing more than recycled plot recitation from another of Chesbro's book series.

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not the first book in the series, but it’s the first I’ve read. The protagonist, also the narrator, is private investigator Dr Robert Frederickson, AKA Mongo the Magnificent, one-time acrobat and animal trainer in a circus. He’s also a dwarf. One of the problems with the book is that the reader is expected to know Mongo is a dwarf; that fact is not mentioned till well into the book. Another is that it’s not a mystery at all. Yes, it has a mysterious element to it in that Mongo is engaged to find out how $10 Million was taken from the coffers of a charity, but the story quickly evolves into a thriller spy story which then almost becomes lost in shifting realities, mutating characters and complex, often conflicting, skullduggery. For all that, however, the book is a great read, primarily because of the plotting (not a thread left dangling) and in the character and narrative of Mongo himself. I’m looking forward to reading others in the series.

[Andrew Cowen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this for 2 bucks from Early Bird Books and I was surprised to like it as much as I did. It's a book that kinda sneaks up on you and says "Hey, pay attention or you'll miss cool stuff! Plus there's a dwarf solving mysteries!" The plot involves the theft of millions of dollars in Bitcoin from a charitable organization by master criminal and vicious murderer John "Chant" Sinclair. I won't try to explain the rest, but I do encourage you to seek out this book if you're looking for a different sort of mystery.

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pages and pages of characters sitting around talking about bizarre conspiracies. This pulp novel just barely kept my interest. It's a late entry in the Mongo series, so there's no character development. Surprisingly, there's also very little action. Much of it reads like a bad 70s spy novel. Mongo is a great series character, so I'll try earlier books in the series.

[Kristine Soly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring, boring, boring!!! The reviewer who said there was too much talking in this book made the understatement of the year!! I'm a physician so I'm used to reading complex things, but this book was just a jumble of people saying things but not letting the reader know much of anything about anything! For example, despite how far I got into the book (several hours before I gave up), there was no mention of the fact that Mongo was a dwarf...in fact, not much of anything about him that you'd expect a book to describe. And there were so many characters that were similarly not well-defined. Furthermore, the whole plot was so convoluted that you had no idea who knew what nor why they knew what they knew. In fact, if I hadn't read the précis before I started the book, I would never have known much of anything about Mongo. It almost seemed like this was a (later) book in a series, and if you hadn't read the previous ones in order, you wouldn't know who was who or what was what. A total waste of time!

[Lapetitesteph]

Très bien.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

stndard Mongo and Garth, promarily interesting for the addition of another female character with strengths. though still standard chesbro