432 pages
Published 2021
Read from December 24, 2024 to February 24
Rating: 4 out of 5
My partner R picked this book out for me for our annual Jólabókaflóðið exchange. I happily read the first 50 or so pages that day, then just kind of… wandered off to read other things. After that, I got weirdly avoidant about it. I didn’t pick it up again until February 13.
In 1912 Cairo, where magic proliferates on the streets and clockwork trams crisscross the sky, Fatma is a suave, well-dressed agent for the ministry tasked with the supernatural. She gets pulled into a case of murder that has roots in the origins of magic in the mortal sphere, a case that threatens global catastrophe.
Mysteries will never be my chosen genre. As paperback blurbs used to say, though, Djinn is compulsively readable. The setting is top-notch, living and breathing with vibrant detail. Clark expertly weaves examinations of wealth inequality, colonialism, injustice, and bigotry into his narrative. This is a book with something to say, inextricable from the story being told.
Also included in this volume is a long novelette: “A Dead Djinn in Cairo,” originally published in 2016. I kind of wish I’d read it first, as it comes before A Master of Djinn; much of the plot gets spoiled in the novel, as Fatma thinks back on the prior case. Still, it’s quite well done, balancing character and worldbuilding with its mystery plot.
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