MAGIC CITY MAYHEM

In Figuerola’s urban fantasy novel, an underpaid, overworked professor of the occult investigates unusual magical activity in Miami.

Dr. Pablo Diaz, who heads the necromancy department at the College of Practical Arts in Miami, is drowning in his father’s medical debt. To supplement his income, he interviews the dead—murder victims for the police department, the recently deceased for their families—and he does occasional work for well-paying mobsters. With the Russian mob on his case, he’s getting little sleep, and he accidentally unleashes an entity known as Baba Yaga on the city, setting off a chain of events that will upend his life. What follows is a frantic effort to protect the city from magical chaos. Meanwhile, Pablo has a growing suspicion that Chancellor Emérico de Menezes—the animated skeleton of a centuries-old wizard who raised the dead to build the College out of the long-sunk ship Santa Inés—is not the savior he thought he was. This novel’s occult magic system, which includes conjuration and divination, doesn’t break any molds. Figuerola’s worldbuilding, however, sets the story apart as it expertly juxtaposes the arcane and mundane; the result is a gritty, believable sort of magical realism, as in this description of a wizard’s uniform: “Emérico never considered that black robes might be an impediment in a tropical climate. I barely survived my first time wearing them, and I bound a wind spirit into the lining afterwards.” Figuerola’s vivid prose can border on visceral, with grinding teeth sounding “like rubbing charcoal briquettes together” or spotted skin “as thin as a latex glove.” Spare, evocative descriptions shine in unexpected moments, as when noting Miami’s duality (“The heart of the city beats to the west while its public face looks out onto a hungry ocean that is ready to drown it”) or the college’s woodwork (“I feel like I’m standing in the ribcage of a wooden giant”). These elements—along with deft characterization—create a cinematic story that leaps off the page.

A contemporary fantasy tale that’s brimming with occult thrills and chills.