Veronica

In a surreal Manhattan Veronica drafts Leo, named after the Zodiac symbol, to help her defeat an evil magician—her father’s nemesis

Nicholas Christopher’s wonderful book Veronica is a love story, wrapped in an adventure novel, wrapped in an encyclopaedia of magic and the supernatural. The story begins with Leo helping Veronica find her keys "on the sidewalk in front of a brownstone beside the Convent of St Zita," Christopher writes. "She wore a black coat and a wide-brimmed hat from which long black hair streamed over her shoulders." Then there were her eyes. "They were different colors: the right one blue, the left green."

From that moment on, Leo’s life becomes completely and totally dedicated to Veronica and her cadre of friends. There is Keko, a beautiful and wealthy but blind Japanese woman who had once been a call girl. One of her wealthy patrons dies and bequeaths her sufficient wealth to free her from her servant’s life. Veronica’s brother Clement, an epileptic who is a sometimes photographer and a devoted pickpocket. One other character looms large in this story, the evil magician Starwood. Though Leo seldom encounters him, Starwood seems to be ever present around Veronica and Leo.

Shortly after the meeting between Leo and Veronica as the book opens in February is the appearance of a blue moon (two full months within a month) and the promise of yet another blue moon in May of the year. The last time two blue moons occurred in the same year was 30 years ago the year that Veronica and Leo were born. "The blue moon is conducive to magical events," Keko went on… "In Tibet, for example, where the New Year began last week, on February 1st, the blue moon is a sign that heaven is shifting on its axis. Strange transformations become possible. The dead can travel more easily, and during their journeys can inhabit the living, leading to unexpected events."

The time period of the story occurs between the months of February and May, the interval between the two blue moons. In that time, the reader learns of Veronica’s father a great magician in his time. Veronica explains: "‘He had many names. Vardoz of Bombay, El Shabazz of Aqaba, Trong-Luk of Lhasa, Zeno the Phoenician, Cardin of Cardogyll… His real name was Albin White.’" He disappeared under mysterious circumstances while performing a magic act at the Palace Theatre in Manhattan.

The act involved Albin White transporting his volunteer from the audience, a Miss Leona McGriff to a place and time of her choosing. She chose Paris when the Bastille had been stormed. Albin White asked her where she was from and she replied Wichita, Kansas. He said that he would transport her Paris and he would visit Wichita at the time of the day of her birth. The trick began with both disappearing and only Leona returning. Albin White was never seen again. Leona on her return claims to have visited Wichita where she saw her father as a young man. She also claimed to have scratched her hand, clearly a fresh wound, on the front gate of her childhood home.

Veronica will keep you turning pages right up to the dramatic climax. Along the way you will learn about dip shing, a piece of wood with magical powers to make the bearer invisible, tulpas, magical embodiments of a living being that live on after the physical being is dead. You will learn much about the world of magic, mysticism, and the metaphysical. You will also fall under Veronica’s spell just as Leo did.

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