The Enchanting Fiddler

Are you in the market for some good news? Try this: David Thompson, publisher of Busted Flush Press in Houston, Texas (his company’s name being, of course, an homage to Travis McGee) is putting one of his, and my, favorite series ever back into print--the Fiddler books written by A.E. Maxwell, a pseudonym employed by Ann and Evan Maxwell. (She is now best known as “Elizabeth Lowell,” and sells a ton of books under that moniker.)

Just Another Day in Paradise (1985) was the earliest of five Fiddler thrillers to reach bookstores during the 1980s, followed by The Frog and the Scorpion (1986), Gatsby’s Vineyard (1987), Just Enough Light to Kill (1988), and The Art of Survival (1989). Busted Flush will reprint the first four of those as handsome trade-size paperbacks over the next few months.

Paradise finds Fiddler, a Southern California-based investigator with a shady past, still obsessed with his gorgeous investment banker ex-wife, Fiora Flynn. She drafts him into helping her save the life of her self-destructive twin brother. When the Fiddler books first came out, their lean prose and evocative looks at California life won comparisons to Spenser and McGee. Now, thanks to Thompson, we can all relive the pleasures of our youth.