The Hummingbird Wizard, Meredith Blevins(Forge) ISBN 0765307693
It has been far too long since I posted a bookish blog entry here, something of a surprise as I read so many books and watch little or no television.
This mystery novel, the first in a series by Meredith Blevins, was a great pleasure to read for the first time, uplifting stuff and a work to be read again and again with equal pleasure. One always comes away from reading this novel (the first time or a subsequent reading) in a happy and rather enchanted frame of mind.
Many years ago, Annie married into the Szabo clan of gypsies and was widowed a few years later when her husband accidentally drove off a cliff on his motorcycle, leaving her with young daughters to raise on her own. Her mother-in-law Madame Mina, gypsy fortune teller, tarot card reader and trailer dweller extraordinaire, blamed Annie for her son's death. Although Annie and Madame Mina have reconciled after a fashion, theirs is a tumultuous relationship and one full of strange twists and turns. Annie's daughters have grown up and left home, but Annie continues to live in the house she shared with her late husband, earning her daily bread as a freelance writer.
At Annie's wedding, her lawyer friend Jerry met Annie's beautiful tightrope walking sister-in-law Capri, fell passionately in love, married her and fathered a son before their marriage fell apart. After his divorce from Madame Mina's daughter, Jerry maintained his connection with the Szabo clan and continued to be the family solicitor and financial advisor. After a long estrangement, Annie visits Jerry in San Francisco and lets herself into his home where she falls asleep as she waits for him to appear. When she awakens, her sister-in-law Capri tells her that Jerry is dead, that he was murdered by persons unknown, and his body has been found in a dumpster outside his office building. If Jerry is dead, who was the man who made love to Annie in his (Jerry's) home last evening? Annie is sure that it was Jerry, but she soon discovers it was not. Against her better judgement, she becomes in involved in Szabo family life, politics and general gypsy mayhem once again as she searches for Jerry's murderer. Along the way, she becomes romantically involved with her late husband's younger brother Josef, the fabled Hummingbird Wizard of the gypsies.
This novel is a splendid read for all seasons, a mystery which is also comical, capricious and downright bohemian. Meredith writes with wit, assurance and a strong clear voice, and her book is full of beautifully drawn characters (particularly female characters) who are free spirits of the first order, colorful compelling personalities who shun the mainstream and insist on living their lives in their own way and on their own terms entirely. The novel has an abundance of interesting encounters, strange doings and gypsy lore, and the dialogue sparkles wickedly from start to finish. Annie is a stubborn, passionate and forthright protagonist, and her mother-in-law Madame Mina is a bigger than life character with a tenacious independent outlook on life and a libido to match. The novel would be worth reading for Jerry's pomona (gypsy funeral service) alone, but each and every word of the book sings like a good gypsy tune played on an old Romany fiddle. Besides, how can one not love a main character who named her daughter E.B. (Electric Blue)?
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