A tribal fetish is stolen from a museum and Tintin is embroiled in a plot to recover it and discover its secret, for which men have been variously bribed, kidnapped and murdered.Tintin follows his leads to South America, where a small country is in the midst of a revolution. Hergé shows in this part of the story how US and British commercial interests in the oil reserves of the area exploit the corrupt regime to foment war with a neighbouring country, to further their own interests and those of European arms manufacturers. Fairly heavy stuff for a children's story from the 1930s, but handled well.Thomson and Thompson make only a perfunctory appearance in this story, but humour is provided by a truculent parrot and Hergé's seeming obsession with mutilating Snowy's tail!
