Hello and welcome to this guest review here on Track of Words, where the fantastic Josh Reynolds – author of (amongst other things) the Royal Occultist series, the Daidoshi Shin books and some of the most entertaining Warhammer stories of all time – is here to talk about A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark. I couldn’t be happier to have Josh on the site as a guest reviewer, not just because he’s one of my absolute favourite authors but because he’s talking about a book that I utterly adore! It really is an incredible book, and Josh has done a great job of illustrating why that is in this clear, concise, persuasive and spoiler-free review.
To start things off, in case you haven’t come across this novel yet here’s the publisher’s synopsis:
Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer.
So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, Al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world fifty years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be Al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage.
Alongside her Ministry colleagues and a familiar person from her past, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city – or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems . . .
With that done, over to Josh…
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Like a lot of folks, I tend to default to old favorites or new books by familiar authors. But this year, I decided to challenge myself to read something new, by an author I’d never read, every month. Sometimes it’s a short story, sometimes a novella, sometimes a book. In the case of P. Djéli Clark, it was all three.
On a whim, I picked up Clark’s short story, A Dead Djinn in Cairo and burned through it in a single night. I immediately picked up his novella, The Haunting of Tram Car 015, set in the same universe, albeit featuring a different set of characters. This one took me three sittings to get through, but I enjoyed it just as much.
Figuring I might as well go for the hat trick, I picked up Clark’s debut novel, A Master of Djinn – and I couldn’t be more pleased that I did. With the ‘Dead Djinn’ series, Clark has created an enthralling and highly entertaining alternate Cairo, complete with a fantastic cast of characters to populate it.
Clark’s Cairo has a wonderfully lived-in feel to it, as do the various characters who inhabit its tangled streets. They’re all well-rounded and memorable, no matter how lightly sketched, and there’s a wonderful blending of the magical and the mundane on every page. Alternate history is often a double-edged sword for writers, but Clark handles his with aplomb, explaining just enough to keep the reader invested but not so much that they become bogged down in the details of this familiar-yet-alien world.
The plot is a pacey whodunit, ripping along from one twist to the next in a gripping fashion. Like the preceding short story and novella, it’s a mystery with supernatural overtones, so it’s a given that the ultimate solution is some variation of ‘a wizard did it’. But as with any good mystery, it’s not the solution that’s important, but how the characters get to it – and whether or not the reader can follow along. Thankfully, Clark proves himself adept at this, crafting a vividly cinematic procedural, replete with engaging characters and a setting that demands further exploration.
If you can’t tell, I greatly enjoyed this book and all of what I’ve read of Clark’s work thus far. I’m looking forward to picking up any and all sequels to Master of Djinn, and adding Clark to my list of favourite reads. I highly recommend that you pick up the novel, as well as the associated novella and short story (possibly especially the latter), and take a stroll through the streets of djinn-haunted Cairo.
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Josh Reynolds is a writer, editor and semi-professional monster movie enthusiast. He has been a professional author since 2007, writing over thirty novels and numerous short stories, including Arkham Horror, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Warhammer 40,000, and the occasional audio script. He grew up in South Carolina and now lives in Sheffield, UK.
You can find Josh on Twitter and on his website.
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Thanks so much to Josh for agreeing to contribute to Track of Words, and for writing such a great review! I can only reinforce what Josh says about A Master of Djinn, which I thought was a wonderful book. If you’re interested, you can also read my review here.
See also: all of my interviews with Josh and reviews of his work.
Check out the links below if you’d like to order a copy* of A Master of Djinn and make up your own mind about it!
*If you buy anything using one of these links, I will receive a small affiliate commission – see here for more details.
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