Gypsy hearts

by Robert Eversz

Richard Milhouse "Nix" Miller is a young Hollywood con man on the prowl for femmes and fortune in post-Cold War Prague. After forty-one years of communism and two years of frontier capitalism, Central Europe is in moral and financial chaos. A charming liar and petty thief, Nix is the traveling woman's dream turned nightmare. After picking his victim's purse, he swoops gallantly to the financial rescue and treats her to a romantic tour of Prague - bed and breakfast included. In this decrepit Old World city, hungry for glamour and the promise of American stardom, Nix feels invincible, until he meets his match in duplicity. In a moment of self-loathing, Nix decides that only love can save him from complete amorality. He seeks his salvation in Monika, a green-eyed femme fatale who spins a wild tale of her Gypsy ancestry and then robs him blind. Half-deranged by love, Nix chases her across Central Europe, himself pursued by a Czech detective wise to his grift and by a cuckolded Hungarian co