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Chester Drum #11
Death Is My Comrade
With a body in his office and a pocketful of secrets, Drum heads to Moscow
Eugenie is seventeen, with long legs, blond hair, and an appetite for misery. Daughter of a corrupt millionaire, she has bounced around Europe's finest boarding schools, and Chester Drum knows she's trouble the moment he sees her tearing her blouse to implicate Ilya Alluliev, a Russian diplomat, in rape. The man came to give her a message, an envelope that quickly finds its way to Drum's safe. Inside is an unsigned note claiming that a Russian Nobel Prize-winning poet is in grave danger. As soon as he reads it, Drum joins the poet on the Kremlin's hit list. The next day, Drum goes to his office and finds Alluliev on the floor, shot dead. The police cannot help him; Drum will find answers only behind the Iron Curtain. At the height of the Cold War, Drum will risk his life for the sake of a fire-eyed teen with a heart made of ice.
Eugenie is seventeen, with long legs, blond hair, and an appetite for misery. Daughter of a corrupt millionaire, she has bounced around Europe's finest boarding schools, and Chester Drum knows she's trouble the moment he sees her tearing her blouse to implicate Ilya Alluliev, a Russian diplomat, in rape. The man came to give her a message, an envelope that quickly finds its way to Drum's safe. Inside is an unsigned note claiming that a Russian Nobel Prize-winning poet is in grave danger. As soon as he reads it, Drum joins the poet on the Kremlin's hit list. The next day, Drum goes to his office and finds Alluliev on the floor, shot dead. The police cannot help him; Drum will find answers only behind the Iron Curtain. At the height of the Cold War, Drum will risk his life for the sake of a fire-eyed teen with a heart made of ice.
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
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12 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Marlowe
193 books26 followersAka Milton S. Lesser, Adam Chase, Andrew Frazer, Jason Ridgway, C.H. Thames.
Stephen Marlowe (1928–2008) was the author of more than fifty novels, including nearly two dozen featuring globe-trotting private eye Chester Drum. Born Milton Lesser, Marlowe was raised in Brooklyn and attended the College of William and Mary. After several years writing science fiction under his given name, he legally adopted his pen name, and began focusing on Chester Drum, the Washington-based detective who first appeared in The Second Longest Night (1955).
Although a private detective akin to Raymond Chandler’s characters, Drum was distinguished by his jet-setting lifestyle, which carried him to various exotic locales from Mecca to South America. These espionage-tinged stories won Marlowe acclaim, and he produced more than one a year before ending the series in 1968. After spending the 1970s writing suspense novels like The Summit (1970) and The Cawthorn Journals (1975), Marlowe turned to scholarly historical fiction. He lived much of his life abroad, in Switzerland, Spain, and France, and died in Virginia in 2008.
Marlowe received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) in 1997.
Stephen Marlowe (1928–2008) was the author of more than fifty novels, including nearly two dozen featuring globe-trotting private eye Chester Drum. Born Milton Lesser, Marlowe was raised in Brooklyn and attended the College of William and Mary. After several years writing science fiction under his given name, he legally adopted his pen name, and began focusing on Chester Drum, the Washington-based detective who first appeared in The Second Longest Night (1955).
Although a private detective akin to Raymond Chandler’s characters, Drum was distinguished by his jet-setting lifestyle, which carried him to various exotic locales from Mecca to South America. These espionage-tinged stories won Marlowe acclaim, and he produced more than one a year before ending the series in 1968. After spending the 1970s writing suspense novels like The Summit (1970) and The Cawthorn Journals (1975), Marlowe turned to scholarly historical fiction. He lived much of his life abroad, in Switzerland, Spain, and France, and died in Virginia in 2008.
Marlowe received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) in 1997.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 10, 2021
I picked this up from a yard sale ages ago and just got to it, thinking, sure, I could go for some easy-read detective pulp drivel! Dang it if I didn’t end up enjoying this book for the most part. Way better written, perhaps Marlowe was one of the better practitioners of this genre. Could do with less misogyny and caricature of others, but that seems to be asking a lot for a trade book from the mid 1900s.
July 14, 2017
Published in 1960, this book firmly plants Drum in the midst of the Cold War. Drum is ex FBI agent who now works as a private dick in the DC area, but is often called upon to act in foreign countries where the CIA needs plausible deniability. He's tough, no- nonsense and has all the right connections.
This story takes Drum from the dangers of Washington cocktail parties to the police state of Moscow and across the forests and fields of the Soviet Union. Murders, secret documents, kidnappings, Soviet interrogations, and more are all here as Drum plays hero and involves himself with a cast of characters, including a femme fatale in training, an industrial tycoon, and a Soviet dissident.
This is a good solid read filled with lots of action. It's a spy story without all the crazy gadgets. It's definitely not a soft, cozy tale. There is plenty of violence and backstabbing and there is a sort of hardboiled feel to the way the tale is told. All in all, quite a good read.
This story takes Drum from the dangers of Washington cocktail parties to the police state of Moscow and across the forests and fields of the Soviet Union. Murders, secret documents, kidnappings, Soviet interrogations, and more are all here as Drum plays hero and involves himself with a cast of characters, including a femme fatale in training, an industrial tycoon, and a Soviet dissident.
This is a good solid read filled with lots of action. It's a spy story without all the crazy gadgets. It's definitely not a soft, cozy tale. There is plenty of violence and backstabbing and there is a sort of hardboiled feel to the way the tale is told. All in all, quite a good read.
February 15, 2014
World traveling P.I. Chester Drum finds himself in Communist Russia to ge an author out of the country. Vasisli Rodzianko had won the Nobel Prize for literature for his novel taking Communism to task. According to Russian officials, Rodzianko was unavailable, he'd refused to the prize and repudiated the novel.
It all starts with a letter passed to a young woman to get to her father, Mike Rodin, then passed to Marianne Wilder Baker when she's about to be searched. Drum takes the letter and locks it away. Marianne's twin sons, Drum was their godfather, are kidnapped for the letter.
Now he has to go in and get Rodianko out. The plan is all set up. Of course plans never work out.
Love these Drum novels.
It all starts with a letter passed to a young woman to get to her father, Mike Rodin, then passed to Marianne Wilder Baker when she's about to be searched. Drum takes the letter and locks it away. Marianne's twin sons, Drum was their godfather, are kidnapped for the letter.
Now he has to go in and get Rodianko out. The plan is all set up. Of course plans never work out.
Love these Drum novels.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews