George C. Chesbro - Mongo - 06 - The Cold Smell Of Sacred Stone.epub

In The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone, George Chesbro's dauntless dwarf detective, Mongo, returns in the most pulse-pounding and suspenseful adventure of his career. If he is to save his brother, Garth, from a fate worse than death, Mongo will have to outsmart the KGB, overpower a deranged killer with a special hatred for Mongo, and hardest of all, try to keep his head when faced with a terrible choice---preserve his brother's life at the risk of forever losing his love, or placing his brother in mortal jeopardy in an effort to win back his soul.

Housed in a super-secret facility of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Garth lies in a coma beyond the reach and expertise of the specialists assigned to his care. Only Mongo knows the truth about the deadly secret locked in his brother's cells, yet to confide in the doctors now would be to put them both at even greater risk. Left with no other choice, Mongo must initiate his own highly risky program of therapy.

The gamble pays off, but as Garth regains consciousness new perils unfold: It seems that Garth can now perform miracles, and he is soon surrounded by throngs of desperate men and women who proclaim him the "new Messiah." Yet as Garth fast becomes a national cult figure, he is also made the unsuspecting pawn in a treacherous plot of international terrorism.

Casting Mongo into a perilous web of sinister intrigue and religious fanaticism, The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone inexorably builds to a shattering climax as competing ideologies, bombs, and bullets ricochet and explode inside a unique yet paradoxical monument to love and hatred, loyalty and treachery, wisdom and ignorance. Peter Straub has already hailed Chesbro "a master" of the genre, but never before has proof of his reputation been so dazzlingly displayed.

---From the dustjacket of the Atheneum edition