Author: A.E. Maxwell
Cover Photo: Larry Brownstein
Published By: Busted Flush Press
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publication Date: June 2009
This is the second book in A.E. Maxwell’s excellent Fiddler & Fiora crime series, now back in print for the first time in fifteen years. Thanks to Busted Flush Press’s program to bring “lost” classics of the mystery genre back into print. Kudos to Busted Flush Press (named after The Busted Flush, a 52-foot boat the fictional PI Travis McGee, John D. MacDonald’s famous creation, won in a poker game), because they are bringing really wonderful literature back to life, and attracting new fans to the mystery genre.
The characters of a good mystery series need to be memorable to succeed very well, and Fiddler & Fiora are definitely memorable. The husband-and-wife duo of Ann & Evan Maxwell, writing under the pseudonym of A. E. Maxwell, make both their main characters, and even many of their minor ones, three-dimensional and fleshed-out. Their ability to do so – along with very well-constructed, suspenseful plots – makes the Fiddler & Fiora series worth the effort of resurrecting and either rereading or reading it for the first time.
Fiddler (the first-person narrator), for anyone unfamiliar with this series, is independently wealthy, having been left a steamer trunk full of money by an uncle, which his then-wife, Fiora – a financial genius – invested quite wisely. Fiddler had various occupations previously to becoming a member of the newly rich, including being a policeman, though he got the nickname of the Fiddler because of his love for playing the violin. Often he looks at things in terms of an overall plan, like a musical composition, where everything fits together, even if some stray fact appears at first glance to be incongruent. He’s a very smart individual, who realized that his skills at playing the violin would never be able to match his mental conception of how the songs should sound like if played perfectly, so he gave up on his dreams of being a professional musician. Still, the fiddling metaphor to describe what the Fiddler does is used frequently throughout the series:
Some people go to the office every day to reinforce their sense of self-worth. Me, I fiddle around in other peoples’ business, lending a hand where I can and deviling the comfortable in behalf of the uncomfortable.
Fiora is not featured as much in The Frog and the Scorpion as she is in some of the books in the series, but she is the beautiful yin to the Fiddler’s yang. The couple maintain a deep love for each other, and live together under one roof, but don’t consider themselves still married to each other, though they are not divorced. They both see other people, but also occasionally have sex with each other, and give each other gifts to express the love that they have for each other. I mention this because Fiora gives the Fiddler a gift at the beginning of this book that he especially likes, and that serves as an important metaphor to understanding the novel.
The gift is a hummingbird feeder. It attracts many hummingbirds to it, which, in itself, can be entertaining to watch. One bird, in particular, interests the Fiddler, because it tries to have the feeder all to itself, and will swoop down out of a tree to drive any other hummers away. Though small in stature, it is tough, and defends its possession fiercely, only letting the other hummers feed without being attacked at twilight. The Fiddler names it King David. Hummers are used to describe various characters in the novel, even a waiter, but the primary metaphor using them relates to Israel – a tiny piece of land, but one that is fiercely defended by the Jews, and one which its neighbors would love to take over.
The never-ending conflict in the Middle East helps set the stage for this novel. The Fiddler gets a call from Shapour Zahedi, a man whom Fiora had “met a few years ago when they collaborated on financing a small business park near Los Angeles International Airport.” Shahpour asks Fiddler, while at lunch at the Ritz-Carlton, to help his family out, because they’re experiencing a shakedown that threatens their continued existence in America. The PLO has discovered that the Zahedis are Iranian Jews, and have demanded to be paid five thousand dollars a month or they’ll tell Immigration and the Zahedis would then get deported, because they’re illegal aliens. As Jews who had left the country when Khomeini took over, they would likely be killed if they were sent back, so Shahpour wants Fiddler to find out who is behind the extortion plan and to help to put a stop to the blackmail.
The action quickly escalates from here on, as blackmailers in general are a greedy lot, and the PLO characters in the book have a deep prejudice against the Jews. Shahpour’s father, Imbrahim, gets kidnapped, Fiddler blames himself for ticking off the leader of the PLO group behind it – Salameh – a relative of the terrorist Salameh, who was behind the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics at Munich – and vows to rescue his friend.
Mossad gets into the mix, also, with two very interesting characters who are integral to the plot, Rafi and Sarai, wanting to assassinate Salameh. Rafi is described as being a large guy who sort of resembles John Wayne in the role where he acted perhaps the most crazy, as the Indian killer Ethan Edwards in the movie The Searchers. Sarai is his daughter, a stone cold fox whose husband, Arye, was one of the people killed by Salameh, who then hid behind his dead body. She is Fiddler’s romantic interest in this novel, as well as being driven by a desire for revenge.
Besides the hummingbird metaphor, there’s the one of the title of the novel, that of comparing a frog and a scorpion to the relationship between the Palestinians and the Jews. Rafi tells Fiddler the story, of how a scorpion promises not to sting a frog if the frog agrees to take the scorpion safely across a river to the other side. But, the scorpion stings the frog halfway across the river:
“‘Scorpion,’ cried the Frog as he sank. ‘You have killed me. But you have killed yourself, too. Why?
“And the Scorpion answered, ‘Because, my friend, this is the Middle East!’”
Both the Frog and the Scorpion, like the Palestinians and the Jews, are enemies who sometimes have to cooperate with each other, despite their mutual animosity. Sometimes, even if doing so would benefit them both, they won’t cooperate, just out of spite for each other. Their teamup with Fiddler is one of the things that makes this book shine for me, that takes it up another level.
The Frog and the Scorpion, because of its Middle Eastern influence and because terrorism is a major part of the plot, doesn’t seem at all dated. The story seems just as fresh and alive today as in 1986, when it was first published. Also, the story has some special significance to me, because my family was friends with a family from Iran who fled the country when the Shah was deposed and Khomeini took over, and their teen son’s name, as in this novel, was Shahpour. It’s just a coincidence, but still, it gave the story extra poignancy to me, and made me a bit nostalgic.
The entire Fiddler & Fiora mystery series is one you’ll want to check out. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, The Frog and the Scorpion is sure to make you into a fan, and cause you to want to read the other Fiddler & Fiora novels, like it did with me. Terrorists, blackmail, murder, beautiful women, spies, and a main character who likes to drive a Cobra – what could be better? Add this A.E. Maxwell book to your reading list today – you won’t be sorry you did
