The Map of Moments-Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon

The Map of Moments
Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
Bantam, Feb 2009, $12.00
ISBN: 9780553384703

It has been six months since history Professor Max Corbett left his position at Tulane to take a job at Tufts in Boston. His reason for leaving New Orleans had nothing to do with securing a better teaching post. He entered the apartment of his nineteen years old lover Gabrielle to find her having sex with a fellow student. Unable to move past the betrayal, he left town. He returns to attend Gaby’s funeral; she died during Katrina with her corpse not discovered for several weeks after the storm. At the funeral, Gaby’s cousin Corrine Doucette introduces Max to Ray, an elderly man who paid for the funeral as Katrina wiped out Corrine and their family disowned Gaby.

The two men go to Coopers where Ray offers Max an astonishing deal. If he follows a map of New Orleans’ magical moments, he can save Gaby’s life. Max takes the map and a potion which he drinks. The first moment appears on the map; the founding of the city; the next is that of a priest’s magical voice blocking the shadows. Others follow until the seventh are the Tordu dark mages ruling New Orleans from the shadows. It is the eighth moment if Max survives the Tordu who want him dead that can save the city if the professor takes proper action even as he wonders how his beloved Gaby is tied to these evil practitioners.

As they did with London’s MIND THE GAP, Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon make a strong dark urban fantasy team who once gain anchor the magic inside the mundane. Max hopes to save Gaby by witnessing the moments, but remains unaware that both the forces of good and evil are manipulating him for their respective cause. His observations and his actions to stay alive turn him into a stronger person than the one who fled rather than confront his cheating late girlfriend; he will soon face a greater more perilous confrontation between his mission and the city. Sub-genre fans will look forward to another urbanized collaboration between these two wonderful authors.

Harriet Klausner