Alexander C. Irvine makes a strong debut with A Scattering of Jades, a novel that can be read with equal validity as fantasy, alternate history, or secret history. In 1835, an attempted human sacrifice goes awry, sparking a fire that consumes much of Manhattan and destroys journalist Archie Prescott's home and family. Stephen Bishop, a slave exploring a Kentucky cave system, discovers a peculiar Aztec mummy that seems, sometimes, to move. A complex conspiracy involving Aaron Burr, P.T. Barnum, Tammany Hall, Irish gangsters, and a traveling medicine man will bring together Archie, Stephen, an accursed girl who may be Archie's daughter, and ferocious Aztec deities in the underworld of Mammoth Cave, in an epic struggle that will determine the fate of the earth. --Cynthia Ward