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Book Overview
Annie Szabo has discovered a miracle: Jimmy Qi, a kid from Chinatown with the power to heal using music. He's dazzling, he's a scoundrel, he's wise, and he makes a great newspaper article. Now everyone wants Jimmy. Feeling responsible for creating San Francisco's latest hot commodity, Annie enlists her mother-in-law, the audacious fortune-teller Madame Mina, to help keep Jimmy safe from his avid pursuers: an evangelist, an ex-hero with a troubled past, a tong society, a CDC doctor, a dolphin fanatic, and an FBI agent who seems too good to be true. Then the bodies start turning up. Annie grabs Jimmy and runs, luring the killer through a tangle of Chinese New Year celebrations and north up the deserted coast where she forces the killer to face justice. Once again, though the spicy Szabo women would like to kick back with a lover, a good movie, and a few laughs, life has something else in mind. One meeting with an extraordinary boy leads them headlong into another wild adventure. Annie and Mina won't back down until their world is set right.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0765307812
ISBN13:9780765307811
Release Date:September 2005
Publisher:Forge
Length:352 Pages
Weight:1.10 lbs.
Dimensions:1.1" x 5.9" x 8.3"
Customer Reviews
2 ratings
very good mystery--worth a read
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
The entire series is good--in the first book Annie deals with her past and comes to grips with it. Book 2, she really gets going on her adventures. Book 3 has the most complex plot. Blevins also has a way with descriptions--in one sentence you see Chinatown, you smell it, you're there. The gypsy lore is perfectly done--you see parts of it without a lot of extraneous detail and it's all completely believable. I really enjoyed how Annie's lovelife developed in this book--it matured and left the baggage behind. The zany aspect isn't gone however; Mina has it in spades, in her lovelife and lore, which fits perfectly. There's enough action to make the pages turn--good, quick read, an excellent mystery for an afternoon.
Hot all over!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
This is a great, fun read with a lot of heart. Annie Szabo is back for her third trip through Mystery Land, and she's brought the whole endearing crowd of Usual Suspects. Plus a few more. Madame Mina, Annie's Gypsy mother-in-law, is back as the most unorthodox sidekick in mystery history, and Blevins has thrown in some excellent and compelling additions. Blevins has a talent for writing totally believable characters and Jimmy Qi, who debuts in this novel, is charming and engaging. Annie's clan goes through a few usual and quite a few outrageous life changes, and manage to land on their feet (though not unscathed). The Szabos never do anything halfway and this story is no exception. I won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't read it yet, but the fireworks don't stop from beginning to end. Love, laughter, hope, help, magic, danger and family collide in one glittering malestrom. Another of Blevins's talents is weaving in absorbing tidbits from various cultural influences, and without being heavy-handed or cloying. Here we've got Gypsies loose in Chinatown being chased by the Feds and it all makes perfect sense. If you love a good mystery, buy this book. (I still can't believe these people are not real.)
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