The Language of Cannibals [Paperback]

This book was my introduction to Mongo. It caused me to frantically search out the then out-of-print previous books, as well as to anxiously await new installments. These books are a strange mix of mystery, adventure, and science fiction. The characters are very well developed, and the relationship between Mongo and big brother Garth is wonderfully done, and rings true. In addition to very nasty villians,a clever puzzle,large scale science experiments, and the threatened end of the world as we know it, there's a solid thread of humor running through. I have two copies. One is the lending copy, the other doesn't leave the collection. They both get regular workouts. Try this author!

"Block-letter trees formed an oppressive jungle that appeared like a great fungus growth that was an infection on, rather than a part of, the land. The exhausted, hapless soldier who had wandered into this eerie and alien landscape was hopelessly entangled in a web of punctuation-mark vines...I looked for some pattern, complete sentences or phrases, in the maelstrom of letters but couldn't find any; in this haunted place, the twenty-six letters of the alphabet were just the skeletal matter of mindless creatures that existed to rend, consume, and infect, not make sense. The painting, titled THE LANGUAGE OF CANNIBALS, was by a man named Jack Trex, and I rather liked it. I found the notion of these flesh-eating letter-creatures food for thought."

- Mongo, at an arts/crafts exhibit of the Cairn chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America

Mongo, visiting Cairn in search of working air conditioning and a little information on a friend's mysterious drowning, dropped in on the exhibit to kill a little time and found only one art-as-therapy painting worthy of notice, because only Jack Trex of all the participants really tried to communicate. The exhibit's sponsor, political commentator Elysius Culhane (author of IF YOU'RE NOT RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG), disapproves of honesty in expressing any ideas he considers "un-American".

Culhane openly encourages Trex's troubled son Gregory, for example, to harass the local pacifist Community of Conciliation. Since Mongo's friend was an FBI agent who'd just been humiliated professionally by being tasked with monitoring the organization, Mongo takes an interest, particularly since his brother Garth's idol, folksinger Mary Tree, turns out to be a member of the organization. Naturally, the parties involved in the first mysterious death overreact to Mongo's interest, and the situation degrades from there.

Ironically, THE LANGUAGE OF CANNIBALS is mostly exposition rather than action, even then including few instances of the true "language of cannibals" as defined in the story (deceit, doubletalk, manipulation of symbols). Each chapter consists mainly of one or two conversations between Mongo and someone else, with occasional large blocks of exposition by Mongo as characters familiar to Mongo but new to the reader are introduced.

Other story construction issues:

- The opening is disorganized, with a lot of emphasis on "escaping broken air conditioning and killing time" switching to "investigating my friend Michael's death" once the police drift into view. Mongo's not taking matters very seriously at first.

- We're told a lot about how deeply Garth admires Mary Tree, but we don't see much of it except when Garth's listening to her music.

- The Gregory Trex plotline is a variation on a similar subplot used to somewhat better effect later in AN INCIDENT AT BLOODTIDE (emotionally disturbed youngster used as a dupe by the real power players).

Drive-in totals:

- Three dead bodies.

- No sexual content (although according to Mongo, Garth drools over his idol Mary Tree a great deal).

- Several alphabet-soup agencies, starting with the FBI.

- Two fistfights.

- One gunfight.

- Two folksingers (including the first appearance of Mary Tree).

- One car crash.

With this book I discovered Chesbro, and I have since purchased and read most of the MONGO books. I liked "The Language of Cannibals" very much and was a little surprised to find that Chesbro was not more popular.