I knew Cannonballers had enjoyed a book about djinn by an author named Clark, but I didn’t pay enough attention and accidentally started at book 2. It was all still easy to follow and I liked it, but I think there are a few parts that would make more sense if I knew the history of Fatma and Siti.
Agent Fatma works for a magical Ministry where magic is real and djinns live peacefully alongside humans, after being let out into the world by al-Jahiz. A person in a gold mask appears, claiming to be al-Jahiz, and causing lots of chaos, including murdering an entire secret society dedicated to collecting al-Jahiz artifacts. He also steals some scary powerful things from the Ministry’s vault (I’m assuming those items got put in the vault in the first book?) and sends the Ministry into overdrive trying to stop the villain. Agent Fatma and her girlfriend Siti, as well as her new partner Hadia, are on the case.
I didn’t love the first part of the book, but now I’m thinking that may have been because I wasn’t starting at the beginning. Fatma the character didn’t grab me right away, and it irrationally annoyed me that she kept calling Siti “the woman.” Weird writing quirk or something. But then the conclusion and the battle at the end totally won me over. I liked all the allies, and the layers of mystery, which seemed super complicated and unnecessary at the beginning, came together well. I’ll go back and read book 1 and see if I like Fatma more!
