Manhunt Is My Mission

Caught in the middle of an Arab civil war, Drum looks for a missing surgeon. Chester Drum knows it's over for Qasr Tabuk when he sees the city's prostitutes taking flight. He came to this war-torn Arab country in search of an American surgeon, Turner Capeheart, who disappeared when the rebels took up arms. His search turned up nothing, and now that the working girls are leaving, he decides to do the same. Death is coming to Qasr Tabuk, and though Drum may evade it for now, it will haunt him as long as he remains in this blighted desert land. On the road out of town, he offers a lift to a girl whose car has broken down. She is Samia Falcon, daughter of the rebel leader, and she knows where Dr. Capeheart is hiding. An army stands between them and the rebels, but Chester Drum doesn't mind being outnumbered. Review quote: "Sinister villains, harsh action, and the always satisfactory crisp, fast Marlovian telling." - The New York Times Book Review "Often brash and violent ... with an impish sense of humor." - The Independent "Drum sleuths to his own beat; he is a strong private investigator, who hooks the audience in each tale, short or long." - Harriet Klausner Book Reviews Biographical note: 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.