‘Money Burns’ a Path of Critical Acclaim for Couple : Fiddler and Fiora, A.E. Maxwell’s Orange County-based investigator and his investment-banker ex-wife, are back on the scene.

In “Money Burns,” their sixth outing since 1985, the fictional twosome join forces to investigate an Orange County banking scion who is involved with international money launderers.

Villard Books, Maxwell’s new publisher, is promoting “Money Burns” as the book that will put “the exploits” of Fiddler and Fiora “over the top.”

The publisher’s emphasis on both characters pleases A.E. Maxwell, actually the husband and wife writing team of Ann and Evan Maxwell.

“Doubleday (the series’ original publisher) never understood that these were Fiddler and Fiora books rather than simply Fiddler books,” said Evan Maxwell in a phone interview from their Laguna Niguel home.

“What (Villard is) trying to do,” said Ann Maxwell, who was also on the line, “is reach another audience that might not have picked up a Fiddler book before, thinking he’s another hard-boiled private eye, which he isn’t.”

Fiddler, who lives in an old beach cottage in Crystal Cover north of Laguna Beach, is a former concert violinist who inherited a steamer trunk full of 20-, 50- and 100-dollar bills from his Uncle Jake, a Laguna Beach dope smuggler who was killed in the ‘60s while smuggling drugs out of Mexico. Thanks to Fiora’s wise investments, Fiddler’s ill-gotten gains have been run up into a respectable fortune.

And Fiddler is not, the Maxwells stress, a private eye.

When Fiddler takes on a case, Evan said, it’s “because he feels it needs to be done. He doesn’t have the need of money which most seedy private eyes have.”

Adds Ann: “We call him a trouble-shooter. He helps people who he feels are getting a raw deal.”

The Maxwells are basking in the glow of the positive early critical response to “Money Burns.”

Kirkus Reviews says it’s “top-drawer Maxwell.” Publisher’s Weekly, calling Fiddler “perhaps mystery’s best-known one-name PI,” describes “Money Burns” as an “edge-of-the-chair tale” with “an elaborate, riveting resolution.”

As for whether the Maxwells think “Money Burns” will be the book that puts their characters “over the top,” Ann laughs and says: “Authors are the worst ones to ask. You love each book. They’re your children.”

The Maxwells said they are pleased with their move to Villard, which publishes only about 35 new books a year.

“They don’t have books they are not enthusiastic about,” Ann said.

“It means,” Evan added, “you get the kind of (editorial) input you don’t get from some of the major mass publishers who do 300 to 400 different titles a year.”

The change from one publishing house to another, however, meant there was no new Fiddler-Fiora book last year. And the time lag between new titles disappointed many of their fans.

“It’s been, frankly, gratifying to find people waiting,” Evan said. “It’s heartening to get a call from a fan or bookseller (asking), ‘When’s the next one coming out?’ People build a relationship with characters, and that was confirmation of the fact that there was a relationship being struck between Fiddler and the reader.

“I’m discovering Fiddler may not be the kind of guy they’d want to have around all the time, but they sure want to visit him once a year. He’s a pronounced flavor.”

In “Money Burns,” Evan said, Fiora is in transition, leaving behind the world of high finance after having achieved success but not finding it all that satisfying.

“Their concerns are much more the concerns of the generation,” Evan said. “She’s achieved success and now can look at those things which she does, not for business, but for personal satisfaction that every human being really wants. In this case, concerns of family, community and of partnership with the man she loves.”

And that partnership, he added with a laugh, “is always going to be a bit rocky.”

The Maxwells, who have been married 24 years, have co-authored 11 books, including their six Fiddler-Fiora novels. Evan is a former Los Angeles Times reporter who specialized in international crime and national security; Ann has been a full-time novelist for 20 years.

Ann, who also writes under the pen name Elizabeth Lowell, has a new historical romance novel due out from Avon in June. It’s called “Only His” and is set in the American West after the Civil War. Last week she mailed the manuscript for yet another historical romance novel set in the same period, “Only Mine,” which will be out in February.

All of which, she said, “is keeping me quite busy. Would you believe seven days a week and nights too?”

At the invitation of their publisher, the Maxwells were in New York earlier this week to attend the annual Edgar Allen Poe Awards, which recognize the best in mystery and crime fiction writing.

On Saturday, from 1 to 3 p.m., they’ll sign copies of “Money Burns” at Book Carnival, 870 N. Tustin Ave., Orange.