The Case of the Crime-Writing Couple

He drives too fast, can’t fathom his ladyfriend’s trust in institutions and wonders why others don’t have his credo: If you don’t make the rules, you’re stuck with somebody else’s.

A thug? No, he’s just the other side of the line--a fixer for the good people.

This is the fictional creation named Fiddler whom one industry source has compared to John D. MacDonald’s famous knight errant, Travis McGee.

What? Another book about a loner getting into nasty scrapes?

Keeping Him Honest

Yeah, but there’s a twist: he has a woman to keep him honest. She is Fiora, Fiddler’s beautiful and brainy ex-wife who spends almost as much time with him divorced as she did when they were married.

Fiora is largely the inspiration of Ann Maxwell of Laguna Niguel, who with her husband, Evan, created the Fiddler character six years ago by typing out a single paragraph on a home computer.

The paragraph went something like this:

Frustrated violinist, guy from Montana, has perfect pitch but hands like veal shanks. Realizing he’ll never be Itzhak Perlman, he wanders out to Southern California, where an uncle has left him a trunkful of C-notes. Rich now, he needs a reason to get up in the morning so he becomes a free-lance “problem solver.”

The Maxwells write under the name A. E. Maxwell. In the earlier books, Doubleday insisted on fuzzing the identity to imply that one person--probably a man--was writing the books.

But Ann Maxwell did her own marketing research and convinced the publisher that thinking was out of date.

“Not only is it OK for a woman to write about a tough guy,” she said, “but it might even help sell him.”

That a woman character in the series is now emerging to be the equal of a man is not something you see very often in crime fiction, said Sheldon McArthur, who runs the Mysterious Book Shop in West Hollywood.

Of the Maxwells’ latest book, “The Art of Survival,” he observed: “It’s the best book of the five and you know this series is just going to keep growing.”

In the mystery/crime genre a 10,000-book hardback run is considered good. Doubleday says its Fiddler series has jumped from a 6,000-copy run for the first book to 15,000 for the fifth.

The paperback versions have gone from 30,000 for the first book to 60,000 for the fourth, published last year, according to Doubleday publicist Sue Laizik.

Last year’s Fiddler, “Just Enough Light to Kill,” was chosen by Time magazine as one of the best crime novels of 1988.

And of the new one, Kirkus Reviews, a book industry forecaster, writes: “The writing is lean and restrained, the series is growing from book to book and it now gives Travis McGee a real run for his money.”

Travis hung out in Ft. Lauderdale. And Robert Parker’s Spenser is from Boston.

Fiddler uses his muscle in places like Santa Fe, Newport Beach and Napa.

“The Art of Survival,” takes Fiddler from Santa Fe to Newport Beach in an art scam involving a faked Georgia O’Keeffe.

In two of the books, Fiddler prevents California high technology from falling into the hands of the Russians. In another, a fiend tries to buy up Napa Valley property and then get around development restrictions by introducing a disease to destroy the vineyards, making the land good for nothing but malls and office parks.

Fiora Comes Clean

But it is in book six, “Money Makes Everything Cheap,” to be published next year, that Fiora really emerges, say the authors.

“We are trying to extend the genre to have a man and a woman working together as equals in crime fiction,” said Evan Maxwell.

Ann interrupted: “From the start I have insisted that Fiora had to emerge. In the first book she was a plot device--she got kidnaped.

“Traditionally in crime fiction, women exist as a bedroom convenience or to screw up in order that the plot may progress. I wanted no part of that.”

Typically, Ann will work at her computer for a stretch, then pull out the disc and hand it to Evan to pop into his machine. Or vice versa.

Evan, 46, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, brings a knowledge of law enforcement agencies and, as he put it, “an understanding of just how a crime or a big scam goes down.”

Ann, 45, not only helped create the Fiddler characters, she makes the stories hop, having mastered tight plotting with 30 previous books, most of them science fiction and romances.

Much of their time is spent researching plot themes in the University of California, Irvine, library. They also visit locales from Seattle to Chula Vista.

The next book, for example, starts with a hike on Orange County’s Modjeska Peak, where Fiddler and Fiora have decided to take a break from tackling people’s problems to solve some for wild animals.

They spend a day cleaning out artificial watering devices called quail-guzzlers, which dot the chaparral.

But Fiddler does not do it joyfully. In the code he lives by, making animals dependent on such gadgets is an example of good intentions gone awry.

As for people’s problems, Ann says: “Fiddler is keenly aware that justice and law don’t necessarily equate.”

Neither Maxwell will own up to specific lines in the Fiddler novels.

“We are A. E. Maxwell,” Ann said firmly.

And they are reveling in the good news that’s coming in these days.

Book of the Month

“The Art of Survival” will be a Book of the Month Club selection for August, the same month the fourth book is released in paperback.

That news the other day called for a nostalgic trip down to Fiddler’s refuge--Orange County’s Crystal Cove. In the books, he lives in a house here with a pond full of koi in the back yard.

Standing on the highway and looking down into this shabby-chic enclave of 1930s cottages, the Maxwells said there has been some fear the houses would be torn down when complicated leasing arrangements end.

“But even if they bulldoze it,” said Ann Maxwell, “Fiddler will live on. That’s the great thing about creating a character.”