From Publishers Weekly
Part gritty urban police procedural and part horror fable, this enthralling fantasy/mystery examines issues of life, death, love and morality. A man without memory, known as the Gypsy, wanders the streets of Lakota, Ohio, leaving death in his wake. After a clerk is murdered during a holdup, the Gypsy is booked by cop Mike Stepovich, who uncharacteristicallydb pockets the suspect's strange knife, found nearby. An apparent snafu releases the Gypsy, who comes under suspicion again when a woman fortune teller is murdered in a cheap hotel. Stepovich, with the unvoiced disapproval of his brash young partner Durand, surreptitiously looks into the murders, now out of their jurisdiction, and finds himself walking down strange paths. Meanwhile a woman known as the Fair Lady is working her spells to draw others, including Stepovich's teenage daughter's friends, into her evil web. She can be stopped only by three brothers, known as the Raven, the Owl and the Dove. As forces move to their climax, Stepovich's retired former partner plays a role, as does an old drunk known as the Coachman, who may hold the key to salvation. Brust ( The Phoenix Guards ) and Lindholm ( Wizard of the Pigeons ) have crafted a powerful and memorable fantasy.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Odd, flavorsome, sometimes irksomely nebulous hybrid of mystical fantasy and urban police thriller, from Brust (The Phoenix Guards (Brust) and Lindholm (Cloven Hooves). In Lakota, Ohio, veteran cop Stepovich and his irritating young partner Durand unwillingly become involved in a series of killings, apparently connected: in one case the murder weapon is a distinctive gypsy knife; in another the victim is an old gypsy fortuneteller. Stepovich arrests a confused suspect and takes a knife from him, but some sort of psychic connection is established: Stepovich knows the man isn't guilty and fails to turn in the knife, and soon the suspect mysteriously vanishes from jail. Turns out that the man, a Hungarian gypsy named Csucskari, exists in both the physical and spiritual worlds; he is waiting for the coming of the devil--in this instance, a horrid female devil named Luci, the Fair Lady, who has ensorcelled a number of young people and threatens to drown the world in darkness. Csucskari's purpose is to oppose her, but first he must join with his musician brothers Raymond and Daniel, and obtain a psychic assist from another necessary participant, the Coachman. Stepovich is psychically involved, too, as are Durand and Stepovich's former partner Ed; Stepovich's teenaged daughter is one of Luci's victims. The affair will result in a desperate battle on the spiritual plane, as cops and gypsies struggle to overcome Luci and her thralls and minions. Gritty and particularly convincing police work, but the conspicuously overblown mystical baggage hinders comprehension and impedes the narrative. Often absorbing and impressive, then, with outstanding characters; would that the authors had restrained their impulses toward self-indulgent ethnic embroidery. --
Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
