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Al Colby #3
The Red Tassel
THE RED TASSEL
Al Colby, international private eye, is hired by Pancha Porter to figure out why her late father’s Bolivian mine has suddenly started to lose money. Driving up to the Bolivian heights is an experience in itself, with the air so thin it’s hard to breathe. But the trip is made worse by the fact that someone has—accidentally?—directed the exhaust fumes to the back of the car where Colby is sitting. Recovering from the near-fatal drive, Colby and Pancha arrive at the mine where they meet Simon Braillard, the manager of the mine.
The pack-llamas and the mining chemicals are being stolen on a regular basis, but he hasn’t a clue who’s doing the stealing. Could the local brujo, Yatiri, have something to do with it? All the native Indians fear him, quick to do his bidding. Or could this be the work of Saturnino, Braillard’s surly henchman, who takes an immediate dislike to Colby? All Colby knows is that something strange is going on in the Bolivian mountains—and that something is bound to lead to murder!
Al Colby, international private eye, is hired by Pancha Porter to figure out why her late father’s Bolivian mine has suddenly started to lose money. Driving up to the Bolivian heights is an experience in itself, with the air so thin it’s hard to breathe. But the trip is made worse by the fact that someone has—accidentally?—directed the exhaust fumes to the back of the car where Colby is sitting. Recovering from the near-fatal drive, Colby and Pancha arrive at the mine where they meet Simon Braillard, the manager of the mine.
The pack-llamas and the mining chemicals are being stolen on a regular basis, but he hasn’t a clue who’s doing the stealing. Could the local brujo, Yatiri, have something to do with it? All the native Indians fear him, quick to do his bidding. Or could this be the work of Saturnino, Braillard’s surly henchman, who takes an immediate dislike to Colby? All Colby knows is that something strange is going on in the Bolivian mountains—and that something is bound to lead to murder!
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1950
2 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
David Dodge
89 books28 followersDavid Francis Dodge (August 18, 1910 – August 1974) was an author of mystery/thriller novels and humorous travel books. His first book was published in 1941. His fiction is characterized by tight plotting, brisk dialogue, memorable and well-defined characters, and (often) exotic locations. His travel writing documented the (mis)adventures of the Dodge family (David, his wife Elva, and daughter Kendal) as they roamed around the world. Practical advice and information for the traveler on a budget are sprinkled liberally throughout the books.
David Dodge was born in Berkeley, California, the youngest child of George Andrew Dodge, a San Francisco architect, and Maude Ellingwood Bennett Dodge. Following George's death in an automobile accident, Maude "Monnie" Dodge moved the family (David and his three older sisters, Kathryn, Frances, and Marian) to Southern California, where David attended Lincoln High School in Los Angeles but did not graduate.
After leaving school, he worked as a bank messenger, a marine fireman, a stevedore, and a night watchman. In 1934, he went to work for the San Francisco accounting firm of McLaren, Goode & Company, becoming a Certified Public Accountant in 1937. On July 17, 1936, he was married to Elva Keith, a former Macmillan Company editorial representative, and their only daughter, Kendal, was born in 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, emerging three years later with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
David Dodge's first experience as a writer came through his involvement with the Macondray Lane Players, a group of amateur playwrights, producers, and actors whose goal was to create a theater purely for pleasure. The group was founded by George Henry Burkhardt (Dodge's brother-in-law) and performed exclusively at Macondria, a little theater located in the basement of Burkhardt's house at 56 Macondray Lane on San Francisco's Russian Hill. His publishing career began in 1936 when he won First Prize in the Northern California Drama Association's Third Annual One Act Play Tournament. The prize-winning play, "A Certain Man Had Two Sons," was subsequently published by the Banner Play Bureau, of San Francisco. Another Dodge play, "Christmas Eve at the Mermaid," co-written by Loyall McLaren (his boss at McLaren, Goode & Co.), was performed as the Bohemian Club's Christmas play of 1940, and again in 1959. In 1961, the Grabhorn Press published the play in a volume entitled Shakespeare in Bohemia.
His career as a writer really began, however, when he made a bet with his wife that he could write a better mystery novel than the ones they were reading during a rainy family vacation. He drew on his professional experience as a CPA and wrote his first novel, Death and Taxes, featuring San Francisco tax expert and reluctant detective James "Whit" Whitney. It was published by Macmillan in 1941 and he won five dollars from Elva. Three more Whitney novels soon followed: Shear the Black Sheep (Macmillan, 1942), Bullets for the Bridegroom (Macmillan, 1944) and It Ain't Hay (Simon & Schuster, 1946), in which Whit tangles with marijuana smugglers. With its subject matter and extremely evocative cover art on both the first edition dust jacket and the paperback reprint, this book remains one of Dodge's most collectible titles.
Upon his release from active duty by the Navy in 1945, Dodge left San Francisco and set out for Guatemala by car with his wife and daughter, beginning his second career as a travel writer. The Dodge family's misadventures on the road through Mexico are hilariously documented in How Green Was My Father (Simon & Schuster, 1947). His Latin American experiences also produced a second series character, expatriate private investigator and tough-guy adventurer Al Colby, who first appears in The Long Escape (Random House, 1948).
Two more well-received Colby books appeared in 1949 and 1950, but with the publication of To Catch a Thief in 1952, Dodge abandoned series ch
David Dodge was born in Berkeley, California, the youngest child of George Andrew Dodge, a San Francisco architect, and Maude Ellingwood Bennett Dodge. Following George's death in an automobile accident, Maude "Monnie" Dodge moved the family (David and his three older sisters, Kathryn, Frances, and Marian) to Southern California, where David attended Lincoln High School in Los Angeles but did not graduate.
After leaving school, he worked as a bank messenger, a marine fireman, a stevedore, and a night watchman. In 1934, he went to work for the San Francisco accounting firm of McLaren, Goode & Company, becoming a Certified Public Accountant in 1937. On July 17, 1936, he was married to Elva Keith, a former Macmillan Company editorial representative, and their only daughter, Kendal, was born in 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, emerging three years later with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
David Dodge's first experience as a writer came through his involvement with the Macondray Lane Players, a group of amateur playwrights, producers, and actors whose goal was to create a theater purely for pleasure. The group was founded by George Henry Burkhardt (Dodge's brother-in-law) and performed exclusively at Macondria, a little theater located in the basement of Burkhardt's house at 56 Macondray Lane on San Francisco's Russian Hill. His publishing career began in 1936 when he won First Prize in the Northern California Drama Association's Third Annual One Act Play Tournament. The prize-winning play, "A Certain Man Had Two Sons," was subsequently published by the Banner Play Bureau, of San Francisco. Another Dodge play, "Christmas Eve at the Mermaid," co-written by Loyall McLaren (his boss at McLaren, Goode & Co.), was performed as the Bohemian Club's Christmas play of 1940, and again in 1959. In 1961, the Grabhorn Press published the play in a volume entitled Shakespeare in Bohemia.
His career as a writer really began, however, when he made a bet with his wife that he could write a better mystery novel than the ones they were reading during a rainy family vacation. He drew on his professional experience as a CPA and wrote his first novel, Death and Taxes, featuring San Francisco tax expert and reluctant detective James "Whit" Whitney. It was published by Macmillan in 1941 and he won five dollars from Elva. Three more Whitney novels soon followed: Shear the Black Sheep (Macmillan, 1942), Bullets for the Bridegroom (Macmillan, 1944) and It Ain't Hay (Simon & Schuster, 1946), in which Whit tangles with marijuana smugglers. With its subject matter and extremely evocative cover art on both the first edition dust jacket and the paperback reprint, this book remains one of Dodge's most collectible titles.
Upon his release from active duty by the Navy in 1945, Dodge left San Francisco and set out for Guatemala by car with his wife and daughter, beginning his second career as a travel writer. The Dodge family's misadventures on the road through Mexico are hilariously documented in How Green Was My Father (Simon & Schuster, 1947). His Latin American experiences also produced a second series character, expatriate private investigator and tough-guy adventurer Al Colby, who first appears in The Long Escape (Random House, 1948).
Two more well-received Colby books appeared in 1949 and 1950, but with the publication of To Catch a Thief in 1952, Dodge abandoned series ch
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 8, 2025
The third and last of the “Al Colby” series written by David Dodge between 1948-50. Colby is an American who lives in South America and who travels the continent extensively. Dodge himself lived in both Central and South America between 1946 and 1952, which definitely lends authenticity to the novels. For some reason it’s much harder to find a copy of this book than the other two in the series.
These books are classic pulp fiction where Colby is the archetypal “tough guy” and whose jobs always lead him across the path of some beautiful women. In this case he is hired by one. “Pancha” Parker is a 20-something American woman who owns a mine that she inherited from her father. The mine is located almost impossibly high in the Bolivian Andes. However profits are down and she is heading to Bolivia to investigate. Colby is hired as a mixture of bodyguard and unlicensed P.I.
Actually I thought this was the best of the 3 books in the series. All 3 novels rise above standard crime fare because of the settings. Dodge’s own familiarity with South America allowed him to create a great background atmosphere for each novel, but on this occasion the setting of a remote Bolivian mining village was particularly strong. Also Dodge adds a genuinely intriguing mystery to this novel, that kept me wondering how things were going to work out. An excellent example of the genre.
These books are classic pulp fiction where Colby is the archetypal “tough guy” and whose jobs always lead him across the path of some beautiful women. In this case he is hired by one. “Pancha” Parker is a 20-something American woman who owns a mine that she inherited from her father. The mine is located almost impossibly high in the Bolivian Andes. However profits are down and she is heading to Bolivia to investigate. Colby is hired as a mixture of bodyguard and unlicensed P.I.
Actually I thought this was the best of the 3 books in the series. All 3 novels rise above standard crime fare because of the settings. Dodge’s own familiarity with South America allowed him to create a great background atmosphere for each novel, but on this occasion the setting of a remote Bolivian mining village was particularly strong. Also Dodge adds a genuinely intriguing mystery to this novel, that kept me wondering how things were going to work out. An excellent example of the genre.
July 19, 2022
The last of David Dodge's Al Colby novels finds his investigator/adventurer pulled in to help Pancha Porter, an American mining heiress, discover just what is wrong with her lead mine situated some 18,000 feet in the Bolivian Andes. It's suddenly seeing production halved and returns fall. What follows is a solid mystery that takes advantage of the bleak atmosphere of the mountain, which depicts the grayness of life for the exploited Indians who live beside its mine, and the dispirited Americans in charge of it all. As with every other Dodge book I've read, the writing is smooth and efficient yet enticing in the way it leads you from one clue to the next. And it reflects Colby himself. As Pancha says towards the end, Colby seems hardboiled. But he's not. Perhaps he's not the marshmallow she then senses him to be. But he is a moralistic observer. No pushover, he has his limits. But as long as justice and duty can be upheld, he is willing to tweak the truth and the application of law.
Another thing to take note of with Dodge. His characters and their lives soon become the focus of attention. Who they are and how they became who they are is what motivates the novel. Still, the mystery of the tassel never lets itself succumb to being a mere Hitchcockian MacGuffin. It has a role in unraveling the story--and it's a matter of literally (a word that seems to have been cheapened in everyday conversation of late) unraveling it, too. I might venture so far as to say it even serves something of a symbolic purpose, especially as it comes to be so closely associated with the actions belonging to the wife, Lili, of the mine's manager, Braillard. Her apparent stoicism is all too ready to give way to her own kind of pent up violence.
Dodge traveled and lived in Central and South America. It shows in his novels, which have the sense of authenticity of place about them. Not only that of place but of a certain time as well, the postwar years of the late 1940s and early 50s. Transplanting an American noirish detective into this locale and making it work without seeming forced or false is quite some feat. I only wish Dodge had continued to write more Al Colby novels.
Another thing to take note of with Dodge. His characters and their lives soon become the focus of attention. Who they are and how they became who they are is what motivates the novel. Still, the mystery of the tassel never lets itself succumb to being a mere Hitchcockian MacGuffin. It has a role in unraveling the story--and it's a matter of literally (a word that seems to have been cheapened in everyday conversation of late) unraveling it, too. I might venture so far as to say it even serves something of a symbolic purpose, especially as it comes to be so closely associated with the actions belonging to the wife, Lili, of the mine's manager, Braillard. Her apparent stoicism is all too ready to give way to her own kind of pent up violence.
Dodge traveled and lived in Central and South America. It shows in his novels, which have the sense of authenticity of place about them. Not only that of place but of a certain time as well, the postwar years of the late 1940s and early 50s. Transplanting an American noirish detective into this locale and making it work without seeming forced or false is quite some feat. I only wish Dodge had continued to write more Al Colby novels.
October 16, 2025
an Adventure in the Andes
“The Long Escape,” published in 1948, was the first of three novels featuring Al Colby, a private investigator, who makes his home in Mexico City. The other two in the series are “Plunder Of The Sun” (1949) and finally “The Red Tassel” in (1950).
Pancha Porter, perhaps as ps not the richest girl in the world, but she he beneficiary of a fair estate consisting of a silver and lead mine in Chile, has a problem. Her father died twenty years earlier, leaving her the mine, which continued to chug on for twenty years consistently paying profits to her, but suddenly the profits have fallen in half. And there’s reports of sabotage and equipment thefts.
And the fiery redhead with the perfect body (the cover art doesn’t quite do her justice) sets out for Chile, not knowing a lick of Spanish, but willing to confront the manager. “Pancha Porter was a surprise package in more ways than one.” “[F]rom the heels of her forty-dollar snakeskin shoes to the bonfire on top of her head she was the All-American Girl. Money, good breeding, and plenty of the right kind of vitamins couldn’t have been combined in a nicer package.”
In Santiago, she is introduced to Al Colby and hires him on the spot to investigate the mine, bodyguard duty, and to assist in just about any way. Colby offers warnings about the journey to Andean high country and the rarified air that only the indigenous inhabitants can breathe without difficulty. And they set off to a world apart from civilization, a world where the mine has operated on the same manner for 25 years isolated from the world and has little recourse against the now- constant sabotage.
The obvious suspicion is that the mine manager Balliard has been lining his own pockets and someone made a quick attempt on Pancha’s life before they even reached the mine. But there’s also the village witch doctor who thinks Pancha’s father stole half the mine from him and has vowed revenge, the miners who might recent the fifty cent a day wage they are paid, the manager’s son out to protect his interests, or the madwoman in rags who screams at the moon.
Much of the novel has a travelogue feel rather than a murder mystery feel and Colby and Pancha are in effect strangers in a strange land. They are outsiders who are intruding where no outsider has intruded in 25 years.
“The Long Escape,” published in 1948, was the first of three novels featuring Al Colby, a private investigator, who makes his home in Mexico City. The other two in the series are “Plunder Of The Sun” (1949) and finally “The Red Tassel” in (1950).
Pancha Porter, perhaps as ps not the richest girl in the world, but she he beneficiary of a fair estate consisting of a silver and lead mine in Chile, has a problem. Her father died twenty years earlier, leaving her the mine, which continued to chug on for twenty years consistently paying profits to her, but suddenly the profits have fallen in half. And there’s reports of sabotage and equipment thefts.
And the fiery redhead with the perfect body (the cover art doesn’t quite do her justice) sets out for Chile, not knowing a lick of Spanish, but willing to confront the manager. “Pancha Porter was a surprise package in more ways than one.” “[F]rom the heels of her forty-dollar snakeskin shoes to the bonfire on top of her head she was the All-American Girl. Money, good breeding, and plenty of the right kind of vitamins couldn’t have been combined in a nicer package.”
In Santiago, she is introduced to Al Colby and hires him on the spot to investigate the mine, bodyguard duty, and to assist in just about any way. Colby offers warnings about the journey to Andean high country and the rarified air that only the indigenous inhabitants can breathe without difficulty. And they set off to a world apart from civilization, a world where the mine has operated on the same manner for 25 years isolated from the world and has little recourse against the now- constant sabotage.
The obvious suspicion is that the mine manager Balliard has been lining his own pockets and someone made a quick attempt on Pancha’s life before they even reached the mine. But there’s also the village witch doctor who thinks Pancha’s father stole half the mine from him and has vowed revenge, the miners who might recent the fifty cent a day wage they are paid, the manager’s son out to protect his interests, or the madwoman in rags who screams at the moon.
Much of the novel has a travelogue feel rather than a murder mystery feel and Colby and Pancha are in effect strangers in a strange land. They are outsiders who are intruding where no outsider has intruded in 25 years.
March 21, 2018
Mystery and intrigue high in the mountains of South America, where air is hard to come by, food doesn't cook right, and trouble surrounds an heiress's mine.
June 23, 2019
David Dodge crafted a trio of stand-alone novels featuring Al Colby, an oddjobsman who would troubleshoot his way through the Americas, and sometimes into the heart of a female companion. Dodge's local travel knowledge is evident in each book with little elements that add credibility to the writing.
In this final book, Colby is hired to help a young woman, with flame-red hair, figure out why her inherited mine was earning half of the income from prior years. As this is a 1950s mystery, there is a eventually a spot of murder, but the heart of the book is about making an economic situation better for all parties. The Bolivian miners and their families lived in poverty, the manager and his family lived in desperate isolation, and the absentee owner-heiress knows nothing about the work or conditions that fill her coffers. When she learns about the poor conditions in the community, she kicks into a version of paternalistic (maternalistic?) philanthropy of the well-meaning, colonial white savior variety...not the answer. Each character illuminates part of the problem with the eventual solution requiring a bit of coordination (and co-opting) to make a better scenario work. In the end, it's still colonial-style capitalism, extracting the resources in Bolivia to profit the owner in the USA...but it seems on a slightly better path.
Bottomline is that Dodge *again* crafts a story that resonates on a local and global scale.
Here's a couple quotes / notes for the road:
--"It wasn't only the bite of the thin cold air that was giving me gooseflesh. That cool 'Buena noche' from a man who had almost murdered me curdled my blood."
--"The village we had passed through that morning while we held our noses had been a pigsty, but she hadn't thought of it as her own pigsty. The muddy little men she had seen grubbing away in the tunnels had been only strange gnomes in a strange underground world, not her miners. Now a dozen ragged women crouching over a rock pile with wizened, undernourished babies tied to their backs had suddenly brought it all home to her. They were hers, her livestock. All of them. // Braillard wasn't stupid. He saw what was on her mind. He said, 'This is Bolivia, Miss Porter, not the United States. These people are Indians.' // 'But they're humans! They're not animals! It's criminal to work any woman for such a wage! And those men in the mines--that filthy village...'"
--"'Sure you can try. It's your money. Pound it down a rat hole, if it makes you happy.' // I didn't mean to sound quite as edgy as I did, but she irritated me. You need more than money and a kind heart to be a do-gooder. You have to know the people you are trying to reform, or you'll beat your brains out trying to change them. I knew Bolivia inside out. And I knew that all the money and kind hearts in the world wouldn't change San Martin Coquellache from what it was, a village of buggy, superstitious Indians. At least not within ten or twenty years, and Pancha wasn't thinking in terms of ten or twenty years. She wanted to work a miracle tomorrow morning."
--"Those weren't the exact words he used, but I can't put down what he really said. There are two kinds of swearing. One is the kind you can print. His was the other kind. It burned him, tore at his throat, poured out in a flood of hatred. For a few minutes there on the hillside, he was raving mad."
--"The murder had been done on the spur of the moment, with the nearest weapon available. A smart detective would have made something out of that, probably. I wasn't smart enough."
--"One of the worst things about a violent death is the mopping up you have to do afterward, but the sooner you do it and get it over with, the better it is for everybody."
--"We were getting closer to the world where normal people lived, where things like love and hate and violent death existed in their proper proportion."
--Final paragraph.
In this final book, Colby is hired to help a young woman, with flame-red hair, figure out why her inherited mine was earning half of the income from prior years. As this is a 1950s mystery, there is a eventually a spot of murder, but the heart of the book is about making an economic situation better for all parties. The Bolivian miners and their families lived in poverty, the manager and his family lived in desperate isolation, and the absentee owner-heiress knows nothing about the work or conditions that fill her coffers. When she learns about the poor conditions in the community, she kicks into a version of paternalistic (maternalistic?) philanthropy of the well-meaning, colonial white savior variety...not the answer. Each character illuminates part of the problem with the eventual solution requiring a bit of coordination (and co-opting) to make a better scenario work. In the end, it's still colonial-style capitalism, extracting the resources in Bolivia to profit the owner in the USA...but it seems on a slightly better path.
Bottomline is that Dodge *again* crafts a story that resonates on a local and global scale.
Here's a couple quotes / notes for the road:
--"It wasn't only the bite of the thin cold air that was giving me gooseflesh. That cool 'Buena noche' from a man who had almost murdered me curdled my blood."
--"The village we had passed through that morning while we held our noses had been a pigsty, but she hadn't thought of it as her own pigsty. The muddy little men she had seen grubbing away in the tunnels had been only strange gnomes in a strange underground world, not her miners. Now a dozen ragged women crouching over a rock pile with wizened, undernourished babies tied to their backs had suddenly brought it all home to her. They were hers, her livestock. All of them. // Braillard wasn't stupid. He saw what was on her mind. He said, 'This is Bolivia, Miss Porter, not the United States. These people are Indians.' // 'But they're humans! They're not animals! It's criminal to work any woman for such a wage! And those men in the mines--that filthy village...'"
--"'Sure you can try. It's your money. Pound it down a rat hole, if it makes you happy.' // I didn't mean to sound quite as edgy as I did, but she irritated me. You need more than money and a kind heart to be a do-gooder. You have to know the people you are trying to reform, or you'll beat your brains out trying to change them. I knew Bolivia inside out. And I knew that all the money and kind hearts in the world wouldn't change San Martin Coquellache from what it was, a village of buggy, superstitious Indians. At least not within ten or twenty years, and Pancha wasn't thinking in terms of ten or twenty years. She wanted to work a miracle tomorrow morning."
--"Those weren't the exact words he used, but I can't put down what he really said. There are two kinds of swearing. One is the kind you can print. His was the other kind. It burned him, tore at his throat, poured out in a flood of hatred. For a few minutes there on the hillside, he was raving mad."
--"The murder had been done on the spur of the moment, with the nearest weapon available. A smart detective would have made something out of that, probably. I wasn't smart enough."
--"One of the worst things about a violent death is the mopping up you have to do afterward, but the sooner you do it and get it over with, the better it is for everybody."
--"We were getting closer to the world where normal people lived, where things like love and hate and violent death existed in their proper proportion."
--Final paragraph.
December 12, 2025
Al Colby, an American private eye who lives in South America, is hired by the beautiful, 20-something Pancha Porter to investigate her late father's Bolivian mine. The lead mine had been putting out a hefty profit for years, but recently profits have dropped by nearly half and she wants to know why. Colby is always ready to work for good money--especially when the good money is being paid out by a lady as lovely as Pancha. But he warns her that the trip is going the be hard on someone who isn't used to the Bolivian heights. The mine is far up in the mountains where the air is so thin it's difficult to breathe.
Saturnino, assistant to Simon Braillard who manages the mine for the Porter family, meets them with the mine's station wagon.The trip is made even worse by the fact that someone has directed the exhaust fumes to the back of the car where Colby is sitting. Since Colby was an unexpected addition to the party, he can only assume that the near-deadly experience was intended for Pancha.
Upon arrival at the mine, they learn that the pack-llamas and necessary mining equipment and chemicals are being stolen on a regular basis--which eats into the profits and, of course, delays production which deducts even more. Rumor has it that Yatiri, the local witch doctor, cursed Pancha's father and that is the source of all the trouble. But Colby suspects a deeper plot. He's sure that Brailliard and his near-silent wife Lili know more than they've said. But when Brailliard is found with a knife in his back and a red borla (a woven ear tassel used to mark ownership of llamas) in his hand, Colby is forced to reconsider his suspicions. He needs to find out what's behind the Yatiri rumor before he and Pancha become the next victims.
So...I'm either not in the right frame of mind for this mildly-boiled private eye adventure or this is definitely a man's story. I say the latter judging from the reviews on Goodreads. Nearly all the men who bothered to write reviews gave The Red Tassel four solid stars (plus one short five-star review). But I...well, I felt like I was wading through thick molasses trying to make my way through the plot. The one saving grace is that Dodge actually plants a really nice clue that would allow anyone not absolutely mired in molasses to spot what's going on. (I was too busy trying to get the goo off...). Oh, and Colby is a good example of the type of private eye I enjoy--not nearly as hard-boiled.
I was aiming to include this in my selections for the Reprint of the Year Awards (hosted by Kate at Cross Examining Crime), but I can't in good conscience beg for votes for a book I don't fell that strongly about. A weak ★★★
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
Saturnino, assistant to Simon Braillard who manages the mine for the Porter family, meets them with the mine's station wagon.The trip is made even worse by the fact that someone has directed the exhaust fumes to the back of the car where Colby is sitting. Since Colby was an unexpected addition to the party, he can only assume that the near-deadly experience was intended for Pancha.
Upon arrival at the mine, they learn that the pack-llamas and necessary mining equipment and chemicals are being stolen on a regular basis--which eats into the profits and, of course, delays production which deducts even more. Rumor has it that Yatiri, the local witch doctor, cursed Pancha's father and that is the source of all the trouble. But Colby suspects a deeper plot. He's sure that Brailliard and his near-silent wife Lili know more than they've said. But when Brailliard is found with a knife in his back and a red borla (a woven ear tassel used to mark ownership of llamas) in his hand, Colby is forced to reconsider his suspicions. He needs to find out what's behind the Yatiri rumor before he and Pancha become the next victims.
So...I'm either not in the right frame of mind for this mildly-boiled private eye adventure or this is definitely a man's story. I say the latter judging from the reviews on Goodreads. Nearly all the men who bothered to write reviews gave The Red Tassel four solid stars (plus one short five-star review). But I...well, I felt like I was wading through thick molasses trying to make my way through the plot. The one saving grace is that Dodge actually plants a really nice clue that would allow anyone not absolutely mired in molasses to spot what's going on. (I was too busy trying to get the goo off...). Oh, and Colby is a good example of the type of private eye I enjoy--not nearly as hard-boiled.
I was aiming to include this in my selections for the Reprint of the Year Awards (hosted by Kate at Cross Examining Crime), but I can't in good conscience beg for votes for a book I don't fell that strongly about. A weak ★★★
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
October 28, 2019
A excellent medium-boiled whodunnit from a neglected writer set at a dilapidated lead mine in the Bolivian Andes. Al Colby is hired to investigate a seemingly pointless series of thefts and vandalism, and while his personal style comes straight from the Continental Op, there's more than a little marshmallow underneath his tough, cynical façade. The fair-play mystery is unfolded and solved with a minimum of tough-guy antics, and a maximum of sharp dialog, crisp storytelling, and top-notch writing. I expect to cross paths again with Al Colby as soon as the inter-library loan comes through!
January 20, 2012
A beautiful redhead hires hardboiled investigator Al Colby to visit her Bolivian lead and silver mine to discover the reason for her declining income. The Red Tassel, the third and final Colby mystery, is about theft, murder and sabotage high in the Andes. David Dodge is always excellent when it comes to plot and dialogue, and just like the other two books this one keeps you guessing till the end.
Incidentally, there’s no thread running between the Colby novels, and few details are given about Colby past. Plunder of the Sun, the second book, is perhaps the best of the three, but just like The Long Escape this is a highly enjoyable, riveting mystery.
Incidentally, there’s no thread running between the Colby novels, and few details are given about Colby past. Plunder of the Sun, the second book, is perhaps the best of the three, but just like The Long Escape this is a highly enjoyable, riveting mystery.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews