The Immortals

[sawyl]

Another debut novel in the form of Jordanna Max Brodsky's The Immortals, an urban fantasy that very effectively mixes the Greek myths with modern day Manhattan.

Selene DiSilva, once the goddess Artemis but now reduced to working as off-the-books PI, finds a woman's body dumped in a park. Touching the corpse, she receives a visionary flash of the woman's last moments. Examining the scene, she recognises elements of ancient ritual sacrifice. As the goddess responsible for protecting women, Selene realises that she has to see the case through to its end.

Meanwhile, at Columbia, Classics Professor Theodore Schultz is catching up with his friend Everett Halloran when the police arrive to inform Everett that his fiancé Helen Emerson has been found dead. Theo, who dated Helen before she met Everett, visits the park to pay his respects and to mutter an old Greek prayer — something which Selene, who has staked out the scene of the crime, catches this with her superhuman hearing and battens on to Theo as a likely ally. Tipping him off about the religions elements of the murder, Selene relies on Theo to pass the information on the police.

When a second body is found in a hospital basement, Theo links some of the items found on the scene to a series of break-ins at museums and realise that the criminals must be trying to recreate the Eleusinian Mysteries, meaning that more people will die before the ritual is complete. Unable to convince the police of his theory — patronising the investigating officer does not help — Theo finds himself suspected of involvement in the crimes and has to team up with a reluctant Selene to clear his name and to prevent more innocent deaths.

Paralleling the main plot, Selene, who has been getting weaker and weaker over the centuries, finds herself newly invigorated just as her mother Leto is finally succumbing to death. Suspecting that her newfound strength might have something to do with the Eleusinian revival, Selene comes to suspect that a fellow immortal must be behind the plot. The most obvious suspects are Persephone and Dionysus, both of whom knew the hidden secrets of the original Mystery, but it could be someone else with a strong reason to syphon strength from murdered mortals to bolster the immortals: someone like her own twin brother Apollo, who might be willing to do anything to save their dying mother.

The Immortals takes the relatively familiar idea of mashing up figures from legend with the modern world and gives it a fresh feeling thanks to solid research, a strong characterisations, and a central murder mystery plot that delivers on its promises — and which even has enough hidden signposting to allow the reader to guess ahead of time who might be behind it all.

Theo is a delightful combination of smart and worldly coupled with the naivety of someone thrown completely out of his normal comfort zone. His relationship with Helen is nicely handled — he admits to himself, if not to anyone else, that he was responsible for pushing her away — and his growing relationship with Selene — the original immortal virgin — has a nicely uncertain feeling that comes from both of them breaking new ground.

Selene is the heart of the novel, mixing the vengeful and absolutist personality of an ancient Greek goddess — at heart she is the embodiment of a series of abstract concepts — with someone who has lived a long time and been shaped both by the passing years and the changing beliefs that have re-written her memories. Her complex relationship with her family — she and Apollo are literal opposites, one being the moon and the other the sun — especially as her mother is finally passing into death, is nicely nuanced, as are her various interactions with the rest of the gods, who are as tricky and difficult as their legends.

Another excellent first novel, I'm looking forward to seeing where Brodsky and her cast of characters go next...