Manhattan Pharaoh : a novel of witchcraft

Rating:
Summary: A Page-Turning Supernatural Revenge Tale
Review: I bought this book about witchcraft in modern Manhattan just hoping for an entertaining summer read. The more I got into the book, the less I could put it down. It's primarily a story of revenge, in which a young male witch, Giles Corey, infiltrates a pulp magazine publishing house in lower Manhattan to uncover what happened to his missing sister, a former employee. The title character is one of the publishers, a crude barbarian, Milton Geld, who fancies himself an artist, but whose talent is almost non-existent and whose sole subject matter is himself. One of his works is a large painting in which he fancies that he is a pharaoh of Egypt.

Using this painting as his inspiration, the young witch sets into motion a series of biblical plagues, based upon the ten plagues of Egypt, mostly played out within the office building itself. His object is to break Geld down and obtain a confession, and, if not succeeding in that, to bring about the destruction of the company and its management.

To complicate matters, Giles finds himself sexually drawn toward the company's Editorial Director, a beautiful woman named Alma, who may possibly know more about the sister's disappearance than she's revealing. She turns the concept of a "femme fatale" on its head, since she's forced to continually make choices between various evils to help keep the company afloat. Although the sexual tension between these two continues to build, Alma already has a worthless boyfriend, whom she ultimately gets rid of. And Giles has problems of his own. He is unable to know love or emotion, without risking the loss of his powers. As these characters' own attractions and frustrations build, so does the frustration within the reader, so that by the time these two get it on - in the weirdest of circumstances - the reader is absolutely overwhelmed by what is one of the most dazzling displays of sexual fireworks I can recall coming across in recent fiction.

Finally, Robert Amsel really makes us a part of the pulp publishing empire he describes and uses humor admirably, when needed, to relieve tension and make this strange, often sleazy world palatable. From the opening on, he also lets us know that this is very much a Manhattan story, and he beautifully captures all the weirdness and craziness of a city where other-worldly things can happen and go unnoticed.


Rating:
Summary: Highly original tale of Manhattan witchery
Review: One thing about "Manhattan Pharaoh" I really liked is that Manhattan itself plays a major role in shaping the attitudes of the various characters - workers and management alike - within the book. In fact, anyone who loves New York will get a bang out of this supernatural tale, and I can't imagine the book being set anywhere else. Much of this work's irony is based on the notion that hardcore, cynical New Yorkers must find rational, logical explanations for the unexplainable, no matter how bizarre or off the wall. But the author also suggests that the core problems these New Yorkers face - aside from being victims of biblical plagues and abusive work conditions - are problems that affect everyone worldwide, namely, being stuck in a negative, thankless, soul-destroying workplace environment because choices are few in a bad economy. The author cleverly suggests this idea by showing how the workers, during their lunch hour breaks, frequent a large variety of international restaurants, which may on the surface highlight the joys of Manhattan dining, but on a deeper level, introduce the entire world as spectator to their own strange problems of survival while being attacked by supernatural forces. But this is just one irony of many in a book that seems straightforward enough, but is actually multi-layered, intricately plotted, and cleverly crafted. I highly recommend it to people searching for something original in the supernatural genre.