It is here that Clark’s book really shines. Fatma is called in to investigate however, like with traditional mysteries, for me the actual solution to the riddle is less interesting than the relationships between detectives, suspects, and victims. Djinn is another supernatural mystery, but simply to say that and leave it is to downplay the wit and creativity that Clark invests in his characters, plot, and entire world.Īs the story opens, the leaders of a secret society devoted to the long-disappeared al-Jahiz are dramatically and fatally confronted by what appears to be the mystic himself-returned and determined to bring down a society he decries as oppressive and unequal.

After several short works (notably the 2019 Nebula-nominated novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015), Clark has brought back the redoubtable Fatma as the chief protagonist of the series’ first novel, A Master of Djinn (Tordotcom, 2021, $27.99). “Dead Djinn” was a wonderfully written mystery that gave us our first look at the brilliant Inspector Fatma el-Sha’arawi of the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, the department charged with investigating crimes and unusual events connected with the supernatural. As a result, Cairo and the entire world have been transformed through magical and technological alliances between humans and djinn. Decades before the events of the story, the Sudanese mystic and inventor al-Jahiz had torn the veil between our world and the realm of the djinn, causing magic to come flooding into our reality. Djèlí Clark’s fantastical steampunk early 20 th-century Cairo, which he introduced in the 2016 novelette “A Dead Djinn in Cairo”.

One of the more colorful and fascinating fantasy universes brought into existence in the last few years has been P.

A master of djinn p djèlí clark