This month local author Bobby Mathews published his second Birmingham-based novel, Magic City Blues.

In this novel “leg-breaker” Kincaid is tasked with protecting Abby Doyle, the daughter of a fictional Birmingham crime lord who operates out of the historic John Hand building.

While on his assignment Kincaid also discovers a land swindle involving the former Carraway Hospital property in North Birmingham.

“I’m using landmarks and trying to use them well and trying to show people a version of Birmingham that they will absolutely recognize,” said Mathews.

Mathews added that he didn’t anticipate the property’s 2022 demolition when he wrote the novel in 2020 and instead thought it might become a multiuse development.

He said the idea for Magic City Blues spawned from the desire to write an homage to one of his favorite novelists Robert P. Parker by capturing the essence of Birmingham the way Parker captured the essence of Boston in his detective novels.

“I always thought of Birmingham when I was younger as sort of the jewel of Alabama, I guess,” said Mathews, who was raised in Enterprise. “…It was the big city in Alabama when I was growing up. But as I became older and became more educated, I found the city is full of incredible opportunity and complication as well.”

“This is a city that tries very hard to overcome and ignore its racist past. It is with varying degrees of success. It is a city where redlining still happens. You can see that with the I59/20 project that went right through downtown Birmingham and kind of separated North Birmingham from the rest of downtown. So, it looked to me like this is still a city where there is so much potential and so much great stuff.”

This is not Mathews’ first novel set in Birmingham. Last year he published Living the Gimmick, a murder mystery with fictional retired pro-wrestler Alex Donovan at its center.

Mathews acknowledged a tendency to choose “tough guys” as his protagonists and said part of this choice was inspired by the dichotomy of being a southern man.

“You have to be tough, and you have to wear that toughness,” said Mathews. “You have to be able to stand and take what the world throws at you. You also have to be able to cast that toughness aside when you don’t need it.”

“…I’m a middle-aged white dude in the 21st century. The world has changed so much, and you have to change with it and embrace it and use some empathy in order to survive and thrive in this world.”

“I think Kincaid and Donovan, they’re both tough guys but they try to treat people in situations with a bit of empathy. I think that’s how I would like to be as well, and I hope that I am on my best days.”

This article was updated on Feb. 28, 2023 at 2:42 p.m. to correct a misspelling of Donovan.