The City of Lost Fortunes

November 27, 2017
Debut author Camp transforms his native New Orleans into a realm of magic and gods that’s still deeply wounded from Hurricane Katrina. Street magician and demigod Jude Dubuisson used to magically locate lost objects and people, but he quit after Katrina overwhelmed the city with loss. The slaying of the god of fortune forces Jude into a maelstrom as he learns that he is inextricably bound with the murder, other murders that follow, and the lives of everyone in New Orleans. Camp’s fantasy reads like jazz, with multiple chaotic-seeming threads of deities, mortals, and destiny playing in harmony. This game of souls and fate is full of snarky dialogue, taut suspense, and characters whose glitter hides sharp fangs. Jude is an engaging, once-cheerful trickster turned hermit and reluctant hero; if his destiny is bleak, he decides he might as well go all-out to save whomever he can and the city he refuses to abandon. Any reader who likes fantasy with a dash of the bizarre will enjoy this trip to the Crescent City.

February 15, 2018
A phantasmagoric murder mystery that wails, chants, laments, and changes shape as audaciously as the mythical beings populating its narrative.It's six years after Hurricane Katrina, and, though floodwaters have receded, New Orleans, as depicted in this boisterously ingenious debut novel, is neck-deep in malaise, its surviving citizens struggling to recover their collective mojo. Among these is a Creole busker named Jude Dubuisson, who, as the book begins, is glumly content to collect spare change from credulous tourists through his supernatural gifts for locating missing objects. The hurricane and its aftermath compelled Jude to hide his true powers under the proverbial bushel until he's beckoned to take part in a secret card game featuring some of the city's most powerful and dangerous demigods, including the treacherous vampire Scarpelli, a fallen angel known as "Wings," and the voodoo high priest Papa Legba. The game takes a turn when Jude goes unconscious after being dealt a hand of five blank cards. When he awakens, Jude finds that one of the game's participants has been murdered. Soon, everybody else taking part in the game is either murdered or about to be; other potential victims include a beguiling young hoodoo apprentice, a zombie jazz trumpeter--and Jude himself. For a first-time novelist, Camp shows adroitness in weaving the real-life exoticism of present-day New Orleans with his macabre alternate universe that's almost--what's the word--supernatural. (Among the unique characters attending a burial service for one of the murder victims: a centaur, a hairy giant, and "a fat, brown-skinned man with the head of an elephant.") Things only get weirder and more intense from there, but the engaging style, facility with folklore, and, above all, impassioned love for the city its characters call home keeps you enraptured by the book's most chilling and outrageous plot twists.One hopes for more of Camp's dangerous visions to spring from a city that, as he writes, "is a great place to find yourself, and a terrible place to get lost."

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March 15, 2018

When Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans, it left destruction and havoc in its wake. For street magician Jude Dubuisson, the six years after the catastrophe has meant a life in the shadows. Jude has inherited a magical power from an unknown father, a gift for finding lost things. He is called from his self-imposed retirement to settle a debt owed to the Fortune god of New Orleans. When that same god is murdered, Jude must return to the world of magic and monsters he'd tried to escape. However, his investigation into the murder also uncovers a plot to steal the soul of New Orleans, and Jude must truly become his father's son and save his city. A masterly game played by gods and monsters, a devastated city trying to rebuild, and compelling characters struggling to find their place in a strange world are all pieces of this fantastic and enthralling puzzle of a story. VERDICT Camp's thoroughly engaging debut is reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's American Gods, with the added spirit of the vibrant Big Easy.--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

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