The City of Lost Fortunes
By Bryan Camp
2018, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Advance Uncorrected Proof
Review by Debra L Scott
Intriguing urban fantasy/mystery about the mythical realms of New Orleans. Evocative of both Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, Bryan Camp’s debut novel is an esoteric twist on the mystery form. Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, Jude is himself a magician, employed and mentored by local deities and denizens. He has a knack for finding things that are lost, or as often as not, things just find him. But the Katrina hurricane devastation put him off his game.
Jude is summoned to a poker game with gods and monsters played with tarot cards. A murder happens. His ominous ex-employer ropes him into one more job: an other-worldly search to find the killer. This means tracking down deities, muses, undead and monsters who claim various realms of the city as their own. Accompanied and/or hindered by Regal, his partner/best friend with questionable loyalties, Jude travels through mundane and mythical realities in search of answers. The more the spirits, monsters and deities are revealed, the more you realize what is truly at stake.
The seven sections of the book are each loosely based on a major arcana card from a tarot deck. They are introduced with a long run-on paragraph of how current, ancient and archaic religions might handle the issue at play.
“In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Void, and Ice in the North and Fire in the South, and the Great Waters. A universe created in a day and a night, or billions of years, or seven days, or a cycle of creations and destructions. The waters were made to recede to reveal the land, or the land was formed from the coils of a serpent, or half of a slain ocean goddess, or the flesh and bones and skull of a giant, or a broken egg. Or an island of curdled salt appeared when the sea was churned by a spear. Or the land was carried up to the surface of the waters by a water beetle, or a muskrat, or a turtle, or two water loons…” *
A familiarity with mythology and the nuances of the tarot are helpful, but not absolutely necessary to enjoy the unique style and story. Camp does explain what he’s getting at as he goes along. But those who appreciate or study these esoteric disciplines will enjoy the hidden clues and extra levels of meaning he infuses throughout the story.
A fun and page-turning read! I rarely read a book twice. This is one that will likely be given that honor. I’m glad to see he has another one in the works, due in 2019.
5 stars.
* quoted from an Advance Uncorrected Proof (Chapter One). The published book may differ slightly.
Word Seeds 