BABAYAGA. by Barlow, Toby - 2013

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013. 383 pp, 8vo (8 1/2" H). "Paris, 1959" The City of Light is the center of the universe. Expats flock to exercise their loftiest ambitions and most libertine fantasies, and maybe dabble in a bit of Cold War spycraft along the way. Refugees from the East - a few babayagas among them - arrive to start their lives anew. The world's greatest city is as cosmopolitan and alive as it's ever been. Will is just another young American seeking his fortune in Paris - except that the ad agency that employs him is a front for the CIA. He's been in the city a few years now and is beginning to sense that his time is up - and he still hasn't figured 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 companion, Elga, have been thriving unnoticed amid 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 warren of a frightened old woman, he undergoes a radical transformation. Oliver is a patrician, fun-loving American who has come to Paris to start a literary journal with the help of some friends, who ask only a few discreet favors in return. When a few of his dodgier acquaintances start dropping dead, he realizes he's in well over his head, though he remains fairly confident that it's nothing a well-made cocktail can't fix. A few chance encounters, a bit of romantic chemistry, a chorus of angry ghosts, a strung-out jazzman or three, a weaponized LSD program, and a cache of rifles buried in the catacombs - those are approximately half the ingredients of 'Babayaga'. But then there's something even more unexpected that Toby Barlow has smuggled in, too: a daring, moving exploration of love and morality." Dust jacket has soft wrinkle at bottom of rear hinge, small blank label across barcode.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Very Good+. Illus. by Dust jacket art by Matt Buck..