Babayaga

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

Will is a young American ad executive in Paris. Except his agency is a front for the CIA. It's 1959 and the cold war is going strong. But Will doesn't think he's a warrior-he's just a good-hearted Detroit ad guy who can't seem to figure out Parisian girls.

Zoya is a beautiful young woman wandering les boulevards, sad-eyed, coming off a bad breakup. In fact, she impaled her ex on a spike. Zoya, it turns out, has been a beautiful young woman for hundreds of years; she and her far more traditionally witchy-looking companion, Elga, have been thriving unnoticed in the bloody froth of Europe's wars.

Inspector Vidot is a hardworking Paris police detective who cherishes quiet nights at home. But when he follows a lead from a grisly murder to the abode of an ugly old woman, he finds himself turned into a flea.

Add a few chance encounters, a chorus of some more angry witches, a strung-out jazzman or two, a weaponized LSD program, and a cache of rifles buried in the Bois de Bologne-and that's a novel! But while Toby Barlow's Babayaga may startas just a joyful romp though the City of Light, it quickly grows into a daring, moving exploration of love, mortality, and responsibility.

Reviews

Spies and witches; sex and Kafka; boomtown Detroit and postwar Paris... Toby Barlow is a warlock. Babayaga is his potion. Drink up -- Robin Sloan
Eye of newt and toe of frog, wit and heart and mordant social commentary: this dark, delicious brew from Toby Barlow has it all -- Hillary Jordan
Tolkien meets Graham Greene meets Anne Rice * New York Magazine *
Babayaga works magic to make 'the impossible possible'... Toby Barlow's adept combination of unexpected genres conjures a tale of witches, the CIA and a detective-turned-flea in 1950s Paris... Bewitching * Los Angeles Times *
Delivers a helluva good time, a delicious mash-up of Cold War spy thriller, horror novel, and love story... It's witty and charming and exceedingly light on its feet... The novel is really something out of the ordinary * Booklist *
Tremendous... As ambitious as any literary novel, because underneath all that fur, it's about identity, community, love, death, and all the things we want our books to be about -- Nick Hornby on SHARP TEETH

Author Bio

Toby Barlow is a writer who lives in downtown Detroit.