AUTHOR: P. Djeli Clark
Having seen a bunch of glowing reviews for this, I decided to give it a try, and I'm glad I did. Clark has created a delightful version of Egypt in 1912. Decades earlier, a mystic/scholar called al-Jahiz opened a portal between realms, before vanishing, and now magical beings, including djinn, co-exist with humans in an independent Egypt that has benefited from djinn design and technology. But trouble is brewing. When the members of a secret British brotherhood dedicated to al-Jahiz are all murdered in a mystical manner, Agent Fatma el-Sha'arawi must find the killer and prevent an al-Jahiz imposter from recreating al-Jahiz's work to bring yet more powerful beings to Earth.
Fatma, a rare woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, prefers to work alone, but her superior assigns a newly minted female agent to be her partner, which provides a logical way to present info dumps as Fatma fills in her unwanted partner and their budding friendship helps keep things moving along. This is a breezy read and I hope to be able to read more about Fatma and her adventures in Cairo. My volume included the story that preceded the novel ("A Dead Djinn in Cairo"), which is a nice plus.
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