James Nicoll Reviews

Changing Order

City of Whispering Stone (Mongo, volume 2)

By George C. Chesbro

27 Oct, 2024

**Because My Tears Are Delicious To You**

3 comments

1978’s City of Whispering Stone is the second volume in George C. Chesbro’s Mongo the Magnificent mystery series.

Dr. Robert “Mongo” Fredrickson is New York City’s foremost diminutive former circus performer turned academic criminologist and private eye. This very specific niche is not especially lucrative. A new client would seem to be a welcome development.

As anyone who tries to mug Mongo, only to discover that the small man is as adept with martial arts as he is with tumbling, could attest, appearances are deceiving.

And What Have You Got At The End Of The Day?

Shadow of a Broken Man (Mongo, volume 1)

By George C. Chesbro

14 Jan, 2018

**Because My Tears Are Delicious To You**

3 comments

1977’s Shadow of a Broken Man is the first volume in George C. Chesbro’s long-running Mongo series. The Mongo series lives in the intersection of mundane detective fiction and outright science fiction. Or at least I think it does.

Former circus tumbler turned black belt martial artist turned academic, criminology professor Dr. Robert “Mongo the Magnificent” Fredrickson has a minor side-line as a private detective. His cases are often peculiar, as if people with normal cases don’t seek out New York’s only dwarf detective. Lookism, I suppose.

His new case seems pretty straightforward: find out how a dead man managed to design a new building.