Our hero, the amusingly named Martha Boozer, is a rape counselor. Petersburg.There's some interesting world-building wrapped in a mess of uncomfortable politics, author screeds, and intrepid heroes who don't do much. Hecox is a retired journalist living in St. Her characterizations are so sparse as to never divert one's attention from the current. The writing is so smooth that one sails along without thoughts of time. Otherwise Crockett's tale forges ahead without detour. Unless one is truly interested in the subject of carousel building, however, the profuse detail can be imposing. She obviously did deep research on the whole gamut of restoration of the old-fashioned county fair merry-go-round.
The author of several paperback romances and suspense novels (she has also written under the name of Linda Crockett Gray), this is Crockett's first hardcover novel. As the story progresses, one senses the odor of the devil and Faust. Budge is the epitome of evil and crass venality. An underpaid professor, he begins to scheme to turn the carousel restoration to his own account. The other restorer, Arthur Budge, is a different and older type. The young sculptor is handsome and charming, perhaps as was the Gypsy carver who seduced Meredith's mother, Helene. Meredith is so intrigued that she gets involved.Įven before the work starts, the story begins to parallel the opening legend. She contracts with a young university teacher and sculptor who leads her to take on, also, an English professor from London, an expert on carousels and Gypsy lore. Meredith, with her new wealth, decides to complete the work her Gypsy father and Helene had begun. Now 30 years later, the carousel has deteriorated even more. Helene and the Gypsy disappeared, and the carousel restoration was abandoned. A plot between the sisters led to Liz's taking the baby as her own. The young carver and Helene developed a mutual passion during Norton's frequent absences.
Norton had hired a Gypsy woodcarver to return the carousel to its original glory. Her mother, Liz, explains that he was the husband of her sister Helene. Meredith inherits all this from Charles Norton, a man of whom she has never heard. Included in the inheritance is a roundhouse on an extensive estate in Connecticut, which contains a disassembled carousel. A young woman named Meredith Hendricks is informed that she has inherited an impressive fortune.
The story plunges almost immediately into the counterpoint. When the witches next appear, the ring breaks into flames and the tavern keeper and his daughter are released from the spell to live ever after in health and prosperity. The Gypsy tells them how to break the circle: They must return to the Devil's Ring in the forest and place three drops of the young daughter's blood on 12 points of that circle.
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