George C. Chesbro (1940 – 2008)

The creator of “dwarf detective” Robert “Mongo” Frederickson, professor of criminology and licensed private eye, George C. Chesbro was born in Washington, DC, and spent most of his childhood in Delmar, New York. After graduating from Syracuse University with a degree in Special Education, he began working with troubled teens. He'd begun writing while still in college, but, for seven years, failed to sell anything until a small literary publication bought a poem of his for one dollar.

His first crime story, “Snake in the Tower,” appeared in the March 1969 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine . For the next couple of years, he'd continue to place short fiction in AHMM and in sci-fi publications like The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Worlds of If . One day, having taken note of the prevalence of disabled sleuths on television, like wheelchair-bound policeman Bob Ironside, blind insurance investigator Mike Longstreet, and overweight private eye Frank Cannon, Chesbro whimsically conceived of a detective who was a dwarf. He began a satirical story about the diminutive sleuth, largely to purge himself of a notion that he regarded as rather absurd and silly, but, as he later put it, “Halfway through, I discovered a key to the man's character was a simple quest to be taken seriously, for dignity. That touched me, and I started over again, this time doing it ‘straight' (or as straight as I'm able). I gave Mongo dignity, and in return he gave me a career.”

That rewritten story, “The Drop,” was eventually published in the October 1971 issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine . It introduced Dr. Robert Frederickson, Ph.D., who, prior to starting his career as an educator and private detective, had been famous as the midget circus acrobat “Mongo the Magnificent.” Over the next six years, eight more stories appeared in both AHMM and MSMM. In the meantime, he wrote his first novel, an espionage thriller called King's Gambit (NEL, 1976). Though it would not be published in the US for more than 30 years, UK and foreign sales encouraged Chesbro to try a book-length adventure of Mongo. The first Mongo novel, Shadow of a Broken Man (Simon & Schuster, 1977), appeared the following year. Fourteen more novels, and one collection of short stories, followed.

Aside from Mongo, Chesbro created two other series characters, mercenary warrior and con man Chant Sinclair for a trilogy of novels written as by “David Cross,” and psychic former CIA agent Veil Kendry under his own name, managing to fit in a half-dozen stand-alones and/or film novelizations as well.

In addition, Mongo's police contact, NYPD Lieutenant Garth Frederickson, who just happens to be Mongo's big brother (and in this case, “big” is meant literally as well as figuratively, since Garth is a strapping six-two), retired from the force, got his own PI license, and was spun off into a series of short stories that appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine . One of these, “The Problem with Pigs” ( EQMM , June 1997), won the Ellery Queen Readers Award for that year.

But it was the novels and stories featuring Mongo himself that were Chesbro's most popular works. Aside from the unusual notion of a dwarf who was a professional detective, the series would become noted for its unabashed exploration of occult and science-fictional elements rarely seen in private eye stories. The third Mongo novel, An Affair of Sorcerers (Simon & Schuster, 1979), involved the detective with witchcraft and dark forces. The fourth, The Beasts of Valhalla (Atheneum, 1985), had him investigating a case that hinged on hideous DNA experiments. And from that point, the Mongo series would, as a reviewer in Playboy put it, all seem to be constructed along the lines of “Raymond Chandler meets Stephen King by way of Alice 's looking glass.”

When the Mongo series went out of print, Chesbro took the unusual step of getting the rights back and forming his own publishing house, Apache Beach Publications, to reprint them. APB has published new editions of all the Mongo novels except for the most recent, Lord of Ice and Loneliness , which was recently published in France as Le Seigneur des Glaces et de la Solitude (Rivages, 2006) , but is not yet available in the US.

Active as a mystery writer, Chesbro was also active in the mystery community. He served for four years on the MWA National Board, and three as MWA's executive vice-president (the EVP is the actual workhorse of the organization; the presidency being a largely honorary title).

Chesbro's work is marked by imagination, boldness, and something every successful writer needs in abundance. Perseverance. Most people would give up if they'd only made one dollar in seven years of writing. Chesbro kept at it, and, because of his refusal to give up, created one of the most memorable private eye characters in fiction.