Drumbeat - Madrid

In Spain for a wedding, Drum must rescue the kidnapped bride. Although a fugitive from twenty-six world governments, Axel Spade has minimal trouble crossing the border into Spain. Though briefly arrested, the guards let him go when they learn the identity of his future father-in-law: Colonel Santiago Sotomayor, whose name can open the lock of any Spanish dungeon. And so Spade and his best man, Washington PI Chester Drum, cross the frontier. Sotomayor is not thrilled to see his daughter become the sixth Mrs. Spade, but he has given his begrudging consent. The wedding party comes off like any jet-set gathering, complete with one of the fiancée's ex-lovers making threats against Spade's life. But one key piece never arrives: the bride. She has been kidnapped, and to get her back, Drum and Spade will pit their wits against the toughest thugs and slipperiest bureaucrats that Fascist Spain has to offer. Review quote: "Very few writers of the tough private-eye story can tell it more accurately than Mr. Marlowe, or with such taut understatement of violence and sex." - The New York Times Book Review. "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. "Marlowe's buoyant skill and credibility lie in the way he has put breath into [his] characters." - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Langton's sparkling prose and inimitable wit offer a delectable feast for the discriminating reader." - Publishers Weekly. "Like Jane Austen and Barbara Pym, Langton is blessed with the comic spirit - a rare gift of genius to be cherished." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 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.