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Chester Drum #4
Murder Is My Dish
A kidnapped intellectual and a dead partner take Drum to South America
When Andy Dineen tires of the FBI, he jumps ship for Langley and joins the CIA to fight the Cold War in Berlin. After years in the spy game, he grows sick of the paperwork, and is considering his options when an old friend, private detective Chester Drum, offers him a job. Drum is surprised when his old academy classmate takes him up on it, and shocked when it gets Dineen killed.
Dineen's first and last case is a stint as a bodyguard for a South American intellectual who's writing an exposé of his nation's savage dictator. When the strongman's thugs kidnap the author and bludgeon Dineen, Drum rushes to the hospital just in time to watch his friend die. Avenging Dineen will mean a trip to South America, and infiltrating a palace whose secret police are not half as dangerous as the despot's daughter.
When Andy Dineen tires of the FBI, he jumps ship for Langley and joins the CIA to fight the Cold War in Berlin. After years in the spy game, he grows sick of the paperwork, and is considering his options when an old friend, private detective Chester Drum, offers him a job. Drum is surprised when his old academy classmate takes him up on it, and shocked when it gets Dineen killed.
Dineen's first and last case is a stint as a bodyguard for a South American intellectual who's writing an exposé of his nation's savage dictator. When the strongman's thugs kidnap the author and bludgeon Dineen, Drum rushes to the hospital just in time to watch his friend die. Avenging Dineen will mean a trip to South America, and infiltrating a palace whose secret police are not half as dangerous as the despot's daughter.
- GenresMystery
281 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 1957
About the author
Stephen Marlowe
274 books25 followersAka Milton S. Lesser, Adam Chase, Andrew Frazer, Jason Ridgway, C.H. Thames.
Stephen Marlowe (1928–2008) was the author of more than fifty novels, including nearly two dozen featuring globe-trotting private eye Chester Drum. Born Milton Lesser, Marlowe was raised in Brooklyn and attended the College of William and Mary. After several years writing science fiction under his given name, he legally adopted his pen name, and began focusing on Chester Drum, the Washington-based detective who first appeared in The Second Longest Night (1955).
Although a private detective akin to Raymond Chandler’s characters, Drum was distinguished by his jet-setting lifestyle, which carried him to various exotic locales from Mecca to South America. These espionage-tinged stories won Marlowe acclaim, and he produced more than one a year before ending the series in 1968. After spending the 1970s writing suspense novels like The Summit (1970) and The Cawthorn Journals (1975), Marlowe turned to scholarly historical fiction. He lived much of his life abroad, in Switzerland, Spain, and France, and died in Virginia in 2008.
Marlowe received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) in 1997.
Stephen Marlowe (1928–2008) was the author of more than fifty novels, including nearly two dozen featuring globe-trotting private eye Chester Drum. Born Milton Lesser, Marlowe was raised in Brooklyn and attended the College of William and Mary. After several years writing science fiction under his given name, he legally adopted his pen name, and began focusing on Chester Drum, the Washington-based detective who first appeared in The Second Longest Night (1955).
Although a private detective akin to Raymond Chandler’s characters, Drum was distinguished by his jet-setting lifestyle, which carried him to various exotic locales from Mecca to South America. These espionage-tinged stories won Marlowe acclaim, and he produced more than one a year before ending the series in 1968. After spending the 1970s writing suspense novels like The Summit (1970) and The Cawthorn Journals (1975), Marlowe turned to scholarly historical fiction. He lived much of his life abroad, in Switzerland, Spain, and France, and died in Virginia in 2008.
Marlowe received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) in 1997.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 16, 2017
“Murder Is My Dish” is the fourth of the twenty Chet Drum novels that Stephen Marlowe left us. Although on its surface this is yet another hardboiled PI series, the Drum novels each begin with a typical PI case in the states, but then the action always shifts overseas to an exotic locale. This time the action involves Drum in a case spanning two continents and a mission of vengeance against the corrupt security chief of an imaginary corrupt Latin American country, Parana, sandwiched in next to Paraguay. From fights along the New York waterfront to kidnappings on the highways and a battle fought in a tenement leaving bodies strewn everywhere, the action never stops. And, it only gets better when Drum heads down to Parana to rescue a damsel in distress, fight for truth and justice, and get himself involved in a revolution against a brutal dictatorship.
March 24, 2023
I was surprised by this book because the setting didn't remain in the city, but moved to a fictional South American country for the final half. That was fine, but it wasn't what I was expecting.
The novel begins in sensational fashion with the death of a man in a hospital, hired by PI Chester Drum to bodyguard a college professor. The professor is now missing, as the book he was working--a fact filled volume of how his country was taken over the dictator that rules it. Drum could care less about the professor because he wants revenge on the killer who murdered his friend.
Drum's investigation into the killer's identity takes some great turns with great action and perfect dialogue. However, he soon has to get into the country under the dictator's thumb to rescue the professor's secretary whose gone down there to be with her mother.
What happens there is fine, and there are several tense moments, but this became more of a political thriller than the pulpy gumshoe yarn I was expecting. It was okay, but my enjoyment of the novel did lessen.
The novel begins in sensational fashion with the death of a man in a hospital, hired by PI Chester Drum to bodyguard a college professor. The professor is now missing, as the book he was working--a fact filled volume of how his country was taken over the dictator that rules it. Drum could care less about the professor because he wants revenge on the killer who murdered his friend.
Drum's investigation into the killer's identity takes some great turns with great action and perfect dialogue. However, he soon has to get into the country under the dictator's thumb to rescue the professor's secretary whose gone down there to be with her mother.
What happens there is fine, and there are several tense moments, but this became more of a political thriller than the pulpy gumshoe yarn I was expecting. It was okay, but my enjoyment of the novel did lessen.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews