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Comments from George C. Chesbro
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Bleeding In The Eye Of A Brainstorm and
Dream of a Falling Eagle were
written under a two-book contract with Otto
Penzler Books, which had a distribution arrangement with Simon &
Schuster. When this arrangement fell apart, S&S ended up cntrolling
many books that had been signed up, and they failed to publish many of
them. I was lucky. It was also somewhat ironic that the last two
Mongos ended up being published by the same company that had published
the first three.
The genesis for Dream was an ongoing and abiding anger at
the brutal regimes the US has supported, both overtly and covertly,
over the years in pursuit of its own agenda.
The genesis for Bleeding was work I had done with very
seriously mentally ill children (an experience described in
Prism). Most of the powerful
anti-psychotic medications
these children must take have extreme and very unpleasant side
effects. I just started thinking, "What if there were
anti-psychotic medications that had unexpected, dramatic and arguably
positive side effects?" and away I went.
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Synopsis
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Mama Spit just hasn't been herself lately. There used to be a time
when she'd spew saliva at anyone who passed by her---even those who
actually gave her money. And if her mouth was particularly dry that
day, she'd at least acknowledge your presence by cursing from
underneath her filthy blankets. Everyone knew that she was
certifiably mad---including Dr. Robert Frederickson, more commonly
known to the world as Mongo the Magnificent. Which is why the private
investigator is so bewildered when Margaret Dutton---the former Mama
Spit---appears before the Frederickson & Frederickson,
Investigations offices one morning. She has no saliva to spew and no
vulgarities to roar. She has come to thank him for his kindness and
offer her help in his office. Abnormal behavior, indeed, from a
madwoman. But Margaret has been transformed by a large
black-and-yellow pill a stranger gave her just before he was brutally
murdered. To Mongo, these pills are just another cheap street drug
and the man another pusher---but to Margaret, these pills are her
savior.
Thus begins George C. Chesbro's newest Mongo mystery. And things only
get more complicated from here. As Mongo digs deeper, he unearths a
conspiracy plot of immense proportions. He discovers that Margaret's
savior was an escapee from Rivercliff, a home for the mentally ill.
There dozens of patients were given an experimental drug. While the
drug eased their insanity, withdrawal from the daily dosage was
violent and lethal. But this isn't their most immediate
problem---someone has hired professional assassins to scour New York
City's streets, alleys, and shelters to find the escaped Rivercliff
stragglers and kill them before the secret of the miracle pill is
discovered.
Mongo the Magnificent has plenty of enemies and little time, but for
the famous dwarf, ex-circus headliner, martial arts expert, and
private eye, this is all in a day's work.
---From the dust jacket of the Simon & Schuster edition
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Quotes from the novel
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- "...in my view, a man or woman who can manage to earn a living, however
meager, doing exactly what he or she wants to do---something which he or she
would otherwise be doing anyway, for nothing---is a success." -Mongo
"...knowing that you're going to die if you don't tell the right tall tale
does wonders for focusing the mind." -Mongo
"I'm incorruptible in my quest for truth, justice, and the American Way."
-Mongo
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Copyright © 2018, Hunter Goatley. All rights reserved.
Last updated 25-MAR-2018 21:41:51.34.
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