Tuesday, December 2, 2008

George Chesbro R.I.P.

I haven't read a Mongo the Magnificent mystery in years. Mongo was a dwarf, former circus performer, PhD (I think in criminology), gymnast, black belt in karate, and hardboiled private eye. I just read that Mongo's creator, George Chesbro, died last week.
I can't remember the titles or much of the plots of the Chesbro books that I read, but what sticks in my mind is that Chesbro's books seemed like guilty pleasures for liberals. The bad guys were crazed fundamentalist millionaires, the Shah of Iran's former body guards, and Stalinists posing as right wing politicians. If an enemy of the United States really wanted to mess this country up, they'd imitate Senator McCarthy or President George W. Bush, not Senator Obama.
Check out Chesbro at Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/georgechesbro

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