Dr. Robert Frederickson, the dwarf detective and professor of
criminology known as Mongo, is back, dealing in a tangled game of
international politics with SAVAK, the dreaded secret police of the
Shah of Iran.
It all starts when Mongo is hired to find Khordad, a missing Iranian
strongman, and the only clue is a contact with another Iranian at the
New York university where Mongo teaches. Following a twisted trail,
he realizes that Khordad may be implicated in the murder of an
anti-Shah student leader.
As Mongo becomes more deeply involved in the search for Khordad, his
investigation results in the apparent death of the beautiful Iranian
woman who had been his brother Garth's mistress. Bitter and
heartbroken, Garth blames Mongo for Neptune's death, and the abiding
relationship between the two brothers---detective and policeman---is
severed. When Garth disappears in Iran, where he had gone for
Neptune's funeral, Mongo, burdened with guilt, follows.
In Tehran, he starts to piece the complex puzzle together. Who
really is the missing man, and who is behind him? What
happened to the fiery anti-Shah revolutionary? What actually happened
to Neptune? But first and foremost, is Garth still alive?
Becoming an unwitting pawn in a deadly game of power politics with his
own life as well as Garth's now at stake, Mongo doggedly pursues the
truth in a quest that takes him on a long and arduous trek across this
historic country. In an explosive climax in Persepolis, the
magnificent ancient city of the Persian Empire that has come to
symbolize so much of Iran both past and present, Mongo uncovers the
most stunning betrayal of all.
With the same skill he displayed in his first novel, Shadow of a
Broken Man, George Chesbro has again turned his cool style to
fashion a plot of stunning originality that is not only compelling
reading but as timely as today's headlines.
