Set in Edinburgh's not-so-distant future with an alternate history of magic, THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD is a mystery with fantasy elements that stands out as a fresh take on the genre.

Ropa is a teen girl who can speak to ghosts. Her job, which she considers to be burdensome customer service work, is to bring messages from the dead to their living relatives. The challenge is getting the family to pay up when the message has been delivered. In the midst of her trials to pay her rent and keep her sister in school, Ropa takes on an emergency request from a charity case ghost. This spirit is a dead mother who lost her son before dying, and the ramifications of not finding him could spell disaster for more of Edinburgh's children as time goes on.

The glue that holds this story together is the mystery of that lost child, Ollie. Even so, the book is split up into its own neat corners. The area Ropa explores is small enough that she's always able to retreat to her home and find guidance from her grandmother. These smaller pockets of the city have the chance to become bigger events that stand on their own. Unfortunately, the ghost-talking aspect, which held a lot of my interest when I first delved into the novel, doesn't amount to much of the plot in any real way. It serves as a window into Ropa's daily life but isn't a major feature that carries her through the story. While disappointing, this gives other aspects of the magic system their own time to shine.

"The mystery keeps the reader invested in what comes next, but the worldbuilding ideas are the real draw. This story takes you to some beautifully detailed places in all their horrifying majesty."

Ropa manages a few types of magic that help her throughout, and each have their own arcs and progression. I won't spoil them here, but one in particular explores a kind of spiritual purgatory, which is brought up in a brilliant way in one of the more horror-oriented events. The book is at its best when these set pieces have their own space to breathe, and their inner mysteries seem to be the real reason to stay until the end. Each event, somewhat secluded from the others, has a chance to tell its own story and ends in a climactic way.

The prose is fast paced and full of character. Ropa is a strong young woman who constantly exudes a stressful style. The writing, which is told through her first person, is thick with slang. I always got the sense that I was receiving a version of the story's events through her chaotic perspective. Ropa is a character worth following if you like confrontation at every turn. From the start, she has an aggressive personality. When interacting with her clients or friends, she's sarcastic and arrogant, even downright mean at times. It's difficult to stay in this headspace for long stretches, and the book doesn't lead to any inner revelation that curbs this attitude.

Though Ropa doesn’t need to uncover a better version of herself to overcome her obstacles, there is a point to having this unchanging, obnoxious teen as the main character. We see her struggles firsthand. As more and more negative things happen to her, we start to understand why she has become this way. Her friends and family, who serve as allies in her mission, give us another angle to see her personality. At times, I wondered why they would continue spending time with her considering the way she treats them. Over time it becomes clear that she holds them in high regard in her own way. There aren't transformations here, but the cast relationships lead to some real emotional depth in their reasons to stick with one another.

The novel is centered on corruption through complacency, asking us to consider the purpose of broader societal organizations. Some of the characters at the Library of the Dead supposedly have a larger mission, with one pretentiously claiming he's a mathematician focused on solving magical problems. Meanwhile, this major Illuminati of sorts has completely ignored the missing children who need to be tracked down. One of the best scenes, involving a small-town baker brought back from the dead to teach her grandson her famous recipe, is a challenge to that very thing. The book screams that broader institutions are stuck unraveling irrelevant problems from the past. As an important sentiment, Ropa’s biggest strength is her focus on small-time ghosts and their personal issues. She’s in it for the people. What matters most is what's here at home and the people with whom she has surrounded herself.

THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD sets up expectations in an uncommon way. It should be mentioned that the book balances on the line between YA and adult, with an adolescent protagonist being hoisted into very adult situations. I wish more books would take this tact, since the audience follows the maturity of the character rather than her age. I should also warn you ahead of time: One of the major promises for which the book builds anticipation is the reveal of the so-called Library of the Dead. While Ropa does go there, we learn little to nothing about the place and its role in this world. Don't expect it to have any plot relevance other than putting Ropa in proximity with another helpful ally in her journey. I assume it's been planted here to serve some bigger purpose as the series goes on.

The ghost-talking sequences, which are some of the most memorable moments of the book, don't pop up along the main story often, but their presence in the beginning opens up the rest of the world to us. This is a place that has been haunted by the past. Ordinary people have cell phones and electricity, but they talk about social media in the past tense. Whatever happened is never fully explored, and I appreciate that we only see glimpses of it. I'd say that's the main highlight of the book: the nooks and crannies of this world that have been affected in a terrifying way by some unseen force of history. The mystery keeps the reader invested in what comes next, but the worldbuilding ideas are the real draw. This story takes you to some beautifully detailed places in all their horrifying majesty.