The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone (A Mongo Mystery) [Mass Market Paperback]

George C. Chesbro (Author)

Book Description

Series: A Mongo Mystery | Publication Date: August 5, 1989

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.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

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

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Dell (August 5, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440203945
• ISBN-13: 978-0440203940
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,052,771 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone, April 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone (A Mongo Mystery) (Paperback)

This final installment of the Valhalla series brings into focus all the ramifications of what happened to Mongo and Garth in the Beasts of Valhalla. Further, it fleshes out Garth, raising him to a character in his own right instead of just being Mongo's brother. The book takes off immediately with Veil defending himself against the assassin sent in the previous book and doesn't stop. From there, it is a fast paced tale where Mongo tries to save his brother from himself and others while trying to figure out who his friends and enemies are. The Beasts of Valhalla trilogy is Chesbro's best work.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "I'm Not Anybody's Master", September 5, 2005

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone (Hardcover)

This is the last of the Valhalla books in that it deals with the final repercussions of Mongo and brother Bart's trip into destructive phylogeny. Bart, who has been haunted by what he learned in the Valhalla project ends the last volume in a surge of violent followed by complete catatonia. Now Mongo struggles to bring Bart back to the world and then deal with the aftereffects when Bart recovers only to become a religious leader.

Mongo's solution to for Bart was to continually play Wagner's Ring to him, recalling the their days as experimental subjects. When Bart comes out he is so different that Mongo almost regrets having intervened in his brother's treatment. What nobody had planned on was that the KGB would had infiltrated the hospital. A drug caused Bart's reaction, and the Russians wanted to know about it.

In a flurry of spy vs. spy, Bart disappears, only to resurface in New York City, trying to help the desolate poor and rapidly turning into a religious icon. Mongo's guilt at what had happened to his brother reaches a peak when he realizes that he must debunk Bart's credentials in order to save his life. Nothing is ever easy.

This is much more of a suspense story than a mystery, since Chesbro consistently tells the reader what is going to happen. And, to be honest, there isn't all that much suspense either. The story essentially serves to take Mongo and Bart through the transition to an independent detective agency. The events in the hospital are dragged out for most of the story, along with some collateral embellishments.

This is Mongo's most introspective novel. Unfortunately, he tends to introspect in the same vein all the time. If it weren't for Chesbro's writing skill this novel would have failed badly. As it is, it is an emotional, but very low key finale to what is otherwise a very strong trilogy. Do not read this book before The Beasts of Valhalla, since the Cold Smell of Sacred Stone gives away much of that plot. While its not my favorite, it wraps up several previous story arcs and sets the scene for many stronger Mongo tales.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Final volume of the Valhalla trilogy, July 2, 2005

By 

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

This review is from: The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone (A Mongo Mystery) (Paperback)

"Prayers for the conversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious. The protestants the same...The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps, pushed the swing door and entered softly by the rere."
- James Joyce, "Lotus Eaters", ULYSSES

"In what eventually became known as the Dime and a Little Time Parable, Garth had idly wondered out loud what would happen if humankind decided to declare a kind of moratorium on its collective obsession with occult power for a decade or more...During this time, each day, every man, woman, and child on the face of the planet would donate ten minutes or the equivalent of ten cents in a personal attempt to better the lot of somebody, anybody, else who might need a hand to hold, or a slice of bread to eat...
"With that kind of crazy talk, it was probably no wonder that a lot of people would take into their heads the notion that my poisoned brother was the Messiah."
- Mongo, prologue

Please don't complain to me about spoilers if you choose to disregard my warnings. The first two chapters are spent resolving the cliffhanger ending of TWO SONGS THIS ARCHANGEL SINGS and bringing Veil Kendry - Mongo's friend and sensei - up to speed on the events of THE BEASTS OF VALHALLA. Consequently, I recommend reading at least those two books before starting COLD SMELL, if not all 5 earlier volumes in the Mongo Frederickson series.

COLD SMELL serves as a transition point in the Mongo novels. Before COLD SMELL, Garth served in the NYPD, while Mongo's main source of income was as a criminology professor with a not-too-active sideline as a PI. After this book, the Frederickson brothers go into partnership and the detective agency sideline becomes their main source of income.

Unfortunately, Garth's last police case (apart from tagging along after Mongo during the Archangel investigation) resulted in his being slowly poisoned with "spy dust", something never meant to be ingested. Coupled with the psychological stress he's endured over the last few years, the aftermath of the poisoning has been enough to land Garth in Rockland Psychiatric Center in upstate New York with a questionable prognosis, since nobody has experience with the aftereffects of this particular poison. (The author worked at the real-life Center for several years, and appears to have incorporated his experiences there into this book, partly through having Mongo take on some volunteer substitute-teaching in the children's segment of the hospital.)

Mongo practices his own unorthodox therapy in an attempt to get Garth to rejoin the world; he plays Garth unabridged recordings of the operas of Wagner's ring cycle, figuring that the associations with the Valhalla project will shake Garth out of his stupor if anything will. This unexpectedly backfires when Garth awakes not as his old self, and not even in the super-cynical state of mind he was in while being poisoned, but with apparently extreme personality changes. He can't bear other people's distress, but rather than avoiding people in pain he seeks them out and tries to help (although this stops short of pushing him into effective actions to relieve his brother's distress over *him*).

Next thing you know, the patients are outside the asylum, and Garth seems to be on the fast track to becoming the center of a new religion as the designated Messiah. And for some reason, this is not received with joy by the various movers and shakers in the political and intelligence communities who are at the mercy of the Frederickson brothers' discretion. The reasons given in the book for the authorities' inability to locate Garth and other escapees, while explained, don't seem adequate to address the question of why the patients remain at liberty once located.

I'm torn in rating this book, and have opted for the low end because I have it more as a hopeless completist in collecting the series than on its own merit. The book begins with a massive block of exposition, then spends several chapters of hand-wringing while Mongo works out how to get Garth communicating again. The interesting bits of the opening chapters have more to do with Mongo's experiences with the other patients than Garth's own situation. Once Garth is no longer under medical supervision, we're told more than shown what's going on (Mongo has little patience with religion in any form), so the middle of the book from my point of view bogs down. My main motives in keeping it around are that the Rockland experiences are interesting, and it bridges the gap between the Fredericksons' separate careers and their joining forces officially as a team.

Drive in totals:
- Assorted mental disorders, including suicidal youngsters (variety of motives), one ex-POW and torture victim.
- Alphabet soup of intelligence agents underfoot.
- Some indirect sexual content, mostly the description of severe abuse suffered by various patients.