In the year 1947, Michael Devlin, eleven years old and 100 per­cent Amer­i­can-Irish, is about to forge an extra­or­di­nary bond with a refugee of war named Rab­bi Judah Hirsch. Stand­ing unit­ed against a com­mon ene­my, they will sum­mon from ancient sources a pow­er in des­per­ate­ly short sup­ply in mod­ern Brooklyn‑a force that’s for­got­ten by most of the world but is known to believ­ers as magic.