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If you believe that illegal immigration and terrorism are issues that are unique to today's world, think again! THE FROG AND THE SCORPION is set in the 1980s, and those issues and more are at the center of its plot. A PI by the name of Fiddler is approached by a Jewish man, Shahpour Zahedi, who was referred to him by his ex-wife, Fiora. As it turns out, Zahedi is being blackmailed by an unknown group who are threatening to expose the fact that he and his family are in the United States illegally, a fact that if revealed would lead to their deportation. Zahedi hires Fiddler to find out who is behind the extortion so that he and his family can live without the fear of being returned to a land where their most likely fate would be death.
The trail that Fiddler follows leads to a complex web of conspiracy and terrorist activity. There are a lot of players - Iranian Jews, Muslim extortionists, secret agents. One of the critical characters is a man named Mossad, who was present at the massacre of Jewish athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich and distraught at his failure to stop the carnage. His daughter, Sharai Yermiya, is a passionate woman is obsessed with killing the man responsible for her father's humiliation. She and Fiddler are much attracted to one another and partner in trying to attain their two disparate goals.
Fiddler is a great creation, right up there with some of the iconic PIs of crime fiction. The dialogue crackles, and Fiddler's wit and humanity show through all throughout the book. The opening pages describe his somewhat complex relationship with Fiora. They do love each other and spend most of their time together, but marriage is something that just does not work for them. After Maxwell painted a really interesting picture of what Fiora was like, she essentially disappeared from the book, which I found disappointing.
In addition to excellent characterization and dialogue, Maxwell packed a lot of suspense into 250 pages. The ending was action packed and thrilling. One thing that puzzled me was that the bad guys allowed Fiddler to keep a small pistol as they moved into the ultimate showdown. That didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But that is a minor quibble—overall, I found the book to be an excellent read and was pleased to find a new-to-me PI to follow.
THE FROG AND THE SCORPION, the second in the Fiddler and Fiora series, was originally published in 1986 and recently reissued by Busted Flush Press. The book has aged remarkably well, with issues such as illegal immigration and terrorism that could have been ripped from today's headlines. Busted Flush has done the crime fiction world a real favor by finding forgotten gems such as this and reprinting them.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, October 2009
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