“A globe-trotting private investigator unravels thieving, murder and local vendettas while protecting a flame-haired heiress in The Red Tassel, an atmospheric thriller set amid betrayal, violence and the chill of the Bolivian Andes.
First published in hardcover by Random House in 1950 and quickly reissued as a Dell paperback, David Dodge’s third and final case for the hard-nosed Al Colby is now back in print.
A California native and former accountant, Dodge earned acclaim as both a mystery novelist and travel writer. The Poor Man’s Guide to Europe proved so popular that Random House published annual editions from 1954 to 1959, and two novels reached the silver screen…To Catch a Thief, directed by Hitchcock, and Plunder of the Sun, starring Glenn Ford as Colby.
Set in Bolivia, The Red Tassel follows American private eye Al Colby, summoned by his friend MacDougal at the U.S. embassy to protect Pancha Porter, a striking young woman from Chicago with ‘flaming-red hair, eyes like sapphires, and a beautiful figure.’ As Colby dryly observes, ‘She wore a tailored gabardine suit that treated her fine figure with the respect it deserved, and from the heels of her forty-dollar snakeskin shoes to the bonfire on top of her head she was the All-American Girl.’”
My review of this taut, fast-paced tale was published today in the Blackpool Gazette, Burnley Express, Lancashire Post, Lancaster Guardian, Sheffield Star, Wigan Today (Wigan Observer & Wigan Post), and Yorkshire Evening Post. Previously, it was published in Book-marked, the blog of book critic Pam Norfolk, on October 16, 2025. Archived online access to these reviews as they originally appeared can be found at these weblinks:
Blackpool Gazette, Book-marked, Burnley Express, Lancashire Post, Lancaster Guardian, Sheffield Star, Wigan Today (Wigan Observer & Wigan Post), and Yorkshire Evening Post.