An Incident at Bloodtide [Paperback]

George C. Chesbro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2000

Dwarf detective Dr. Robert "Mongo" Frederickson is back in his 11th novel-length adventure. Mongo and his brother Garth have a violent run-in with a self-proclaimed magician who threatens revenge. Ugly pranks begin to disrupt their lives, but when Mongo investigates a horrible death, he finds much more than he bargained for.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gleefully subverting most of the rules of mystery fiction, Chesbro ( Dark Chant in a Crimson Key ) once again produces an extraordinary adventure for his singularly implausible (albeit surpassingly entertaining) dwarf detective, former circus star turned criminologist/sleuth and media darling, Mongo Frederickson. Mongo is visiting his brother Garth and his famous folksinger wife, Mary, when Sacra, Mary's former lover, arrives to claim Mary as his own. Mary is plainly terrified and believes Sacra is a witch. Because Mongo's former loves also include a practitioner of the black arts, he takes Mary's fears seriously. Meanwhile, out on the Hudson River, not far from Garth's house, a shipping company is dumping oil into the water and loading mysterious cargo for export overseas. When an environmentalist friend tries to obtain evidence, his body is ripped apart by propeller blades. With only one real suspect, the author is forced to weld Garth's domestic woes to the wider environmental concerns of the Hudson River. This kind of minimalist plot gambit could easily misfire, but Mongo and his cohorts form such a ruthlessly cunning, delightfully oddball crew that the reader remains engrossed. The action heats up, bodies are battered and the plucky Mongo gets to pilot a tanker through murky waters.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

The 11th adventure in which Mongo Frederickson (Dark Chant in a Crimson Key, etc.) uses superior intellect, circus tricks, karate, magic, and pretentious metaphysical folderol to foil various scourges of Western Civilization--here, the loathsome Sacra Silver, who's intent on breaking up the marriage of Mongo's brother and sister-in-law, illegally polluting the Hudson by dumping chemicals from his daddy's fleet of tankers, and making a few zillion on the side by selling parched Kuwaitis shiploads of the (contaminated) Hudson. When both the Coast Guard and the police skirt responsibility for the filth--as well as the propeller- chopped body recently found in the river--Mongo sallies forth to waylay a tanker headed for the Tappan Zee. Despite a concussion, he succeeds--only to find his brother wired up to a homemade electric chair and his sister-in-law forced to commit mayhem to save him. Mongo, a comic-book hero sans pictures, again blathers on about witches, the supernatural, and his personal philosophy (``Love, my friend, is the greatest mystery of all'')--all done in a manner destined to please the converted. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Apache Beach Publications (December 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930253001
• ISBN-13: 978-1930253001
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,180,515 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The 12th Mongo book: eternity and the river, June 13, 2005

By 

Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Incident at Bloodtide (Paperback)

"[T]he sun's rays...bathing the normally mud-coloured river in a red glow that was heightened by a recent bloom of microorganisms, a relatively rare and short-lived phenomenon I had heard local sailors and fishermen refer to as 'bloodtide'."

- Mongo, hoping to avoid paddling on the Hudson River, just before accepting a tow

AN INCIDENT AT BLOODTIDE contains major spoilers for AN AFFAIR OF SORCERERS, SECOND HORSEMAN OUT OF EDEN, and THE LANGUAGE OF CANNIBALS, so if you haven't read them, shoo. Harper Rhys-Whitney is travelling in the Amazon as the story opens, and only due back near the end. Kevin Shannon is out of office, and the kind of influence the Fredericksons have in Washington DC has changed accordingly. Recurring supporting characters featured include Vicky Brown and April Marlowe.

Mongo and Garth are towed home from an ill-planned sailing jaunt by Tom Blaine, a riverkeeper who works full time for the Cairn Fishermen's Association at catching polluters. In the Mongo narrative universe, the Shannon presidency has been replaced by a pro-business anti-environmental protection regime that effectively treats the river as something to take money out of and pour pollution into, so Blaine is an unprotected whistleblower type. Within days of the rescue, Mongo and Garth's wife Mary find Blaine floating in his beloved river, supposedly after diving too near a tanker's engines.

But why would Carver Shipping personnel bother to murder Blaine when anything he could report them for would merit only a fine and a metaphorical slap on the wrist, if that?

Mary and Garth, meanwhile, have their own problems. An old boyfriend - a supposed ceremonial magician calling himself Sacra Silver - has oozed back into Mary's life. She's so frightened of what he might do to those she loves (and sending such mixed signals by not ordering him to stay away) that Garth is demoralized to the point of moving back in with Mongo for awhile.

Nice little plot of psychological warfare going on between "Sacra Silver" and the Fredricksons, with some really creative, evil moves on Silver's part. The Blaine murder makes a refreshing change of pace from the more usual spy-versus-spy cases of many Mongo novels, although environmental protection issues draw an equally jaded, cynical appraisal.

Drive-in totals:

- Two dead bodies.

- No direct sexual content, though some past incidents are referred to.

- Two hospital visits.

- No car crashes.

- Bureaucratic tangle of jurisdictions, with the Coast Guard refusing to take ownership of the issues at hand.

- Kung fu.

- Musical instrument fu.

- Philosophical discourses about belief systems.