Ah, libraries. Are you one of those people who enter a library almost with a sigh of relief, with a feeling of “coming home”? Even now, when much of my reading is done digitally and with my own physical copies, walking through the doors of such a place makes me smile. Because, you know: books! Untapped knowledge, things to discover, to educate, to entertain, all in one place.
What that also means, I guess, is that a book with a library as a setting already starts with an advantage for me, and I suspect for some others. (Which makes me think: there might be an article in there somewhere…)
TL Huchu’s debut novel not only has a secret library as a place in its pages but is proud enough to have it as the book’s title.
Teenager Ropa Moyo is a precocious girl. She lives with her Gran and her younger sister on a caravan park in some sort of alternative or future Edinburgh. (In some sort of creepy Prisoner-like way the traditional greeting seems to be “God save the king” to which the respondent reply is “Long may he reign.”) Her background seems rather typical of many in this future. Having given up on school, but independent enough to realise that she needs to educate herself, Ropa spends much of her time each month trying to scrape the money together to pay for their rent and get her Gran her much-needed meds.
So far this could be some sort of dystopian social commentary on a future-teenage wasteland. However, in this place magic is real – her unpleasant landlord is actually a troll – and Ropa has the ability to speak to the dead, which she uses to bring some income in.
Like some sort of teenage Harry Dresden, Ropa spends her nights travelling around Edinburgh talking to spirits that only she can see and using her Zimbabwean magic to take commissions for passing messages on to those still on Earth – providing that they can pay, of course! This all sounds quite sad, though Ropa is resilient enough to explain all of this with a degree of humour.
And that’s what is this book’s strength. Told in the first-person throughout, Ropa is a lively, intelligent and likeable personality. Sassy without being annoying or malicious, Ropa is a pleasingly well-rounded character who quickly engages with the reader.
One night Ropa talks to Nicola, a mother recently gone to the realm known as the everyThere, but cannot move on as her son Oliver has disappeared. There’s been a spate of recent child abductions in the city and stories of a creepy Milkman, and she cannot rest, fearing that Oliver has become a victim. Ropa doesn’t do charity cases (“Emotional blackmail don’t work on me. This is business, nothing more, nothing less.” she says at one point), but she is drawn to this one.
As the book continues, the cause of these mysterious happenings is revealed, with horrifying results. Despite this, Ropa puts herself and her friends Jomo and Priya in danger to save not just Oliver but other abducted children.
This one flows seemingly effortlessly. Whilst we learn more about Ropa and her attempts to find Oliver, we are also drip-fed more details about her family (which partly explains her magical heritage), her previous background as a petty thief and Clan member and this strange landscape she inhabits. Huchu uses the streets of Edinburgh to depict a world of squalor and decline but with enclaves for the wealthy. There’s also this secret underground library that Ropa finds herself with access to, which although the means of her access is a rather convenient plot point, is an effectively good setting. Whilst it does feel a little underused, it is clear that both the library and the people within it will be somewhere that Ropa will return to in the future.
The Library of the Dead is a surprisingly good debut genre novel that drags you in and keeps you reading through the force of nature that is Ropa Moyo. For those rather jaded by the spate of urban fantasy out there (like me) this one’s good enough and different enough to keep you interested. And have I said already it has a library? I’m looking forward to more of these.
The Library of the Dead by T L Huchu
Book One of the Edinburgh Nights series
Published by Tor, February 2021
ISBN: 978-1529039450
336 pages
Review by Mark Yon
