The Gypsy - Softcover

Brust, Steven; Lindholm, Megan

3.44

938 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812524985 ISBN 13: 9780812524987

Publisher: Tor Books, 1993

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Neither Stepovich, a seasoned cop, nor Cigany, a gypsy who stalks the city streets in a cloud of magic, seems to be able to find the killer who is leaving a trail of dead bodies all over the city

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About the Author:

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and raised in a family of Hungarian labor organizers, Steven Brust worked as a musician and a computer programmer before coming to prominence as a writer in 1983 with Jhereg, the first of his novels about Vlad Taltos, a human professional assassin in a world dominated by long-lived, magically-empowered human-like "Dragaerans."

Over the next several years, several more "Taltos" novels followed, interspersed with other work, including To Reign in Hell, a fantasy re-working of Milton's war in Heaven; The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, a contemporary fantasy based on Hungarian folktales; and a science fiction novel, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille. The most recent "Taltos" novels are Dragon and Issola. In 1991, with The Phoenix Guards, Brust began another series, set a thousand years earlier than the Taltos books; its sequels are Five Hundred Years After and the three volumes of "The Viscount of Adrilankha": The Paths of the Dead, The Lord of Castle Black, and Sethra Lavode.

While writing, Brust has continued to work as a musician, playing drums for the legendary band Cats Laughing and recording an album of his own work, A Rose for Iconoclastes. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada where he pursues an ongoing interest in stochastics.

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.

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