Title: A Dead Djinn in Cairo
Series: Dead Djinn Universe #0.5
Author: P. Djèlí Clark
Genre: Steampunk
Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, mild gore, undead creatures, suicide, nudity
Back Cover:
Egypt, 1912. In an alternate Cairo infused with the otherworldly, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divine.
What starts off as an odd suicide case for Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi leads her through the city’s underbelly as she encounters rampaging ghouls, saucy assassins, clockwork angels, and plot that could unravel time itself.
Review:
This is a novella, so it’s able to be devoured in a single sitting, which is exactly the way it should be read because it’s great.
I love steampunk anyway, but this blend of steampunk and supernatural with a Middle Eastern setting was absolutely fantastic. Fifty years ago a magician gave the supernatural world access to our world, and now sorcerers, djinn, angels, the undead, and all manner of magical things are commonplace in Fatima’s Cairo. Her job is to investigate crimes and other problems involving the supernatural.
Fatma is awesome. She dresses like an English gentleman, really knows what she’s doing, and overall was a ton of fun to follow around. She’s smart and unflappable and it was a lot of fun to contrast her against her staunchly traditionalist partner in the beginning before she went off to save the world on her own.
What starts as a really weird magical suicide case turns into something much bigger real quick, as Fatma’s investigation leads her to discover a dead djinn, a dead angel, and a prophecy that means she has until dawn to stop the old gods from coming into the world and killing every single human on the planet. It manages to be just tangled enough to be interesting without being so tangled as to feel rushed, and even though a couple of the answers seemed to be a little easy, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
This being super short, you don’t get a lot of details, but this is a prequel of sorts to a series featuring her so I’m super excited to get more. I would love a full-length novel or several in this world with Fatma being awesome.
The Dead Djinn Universe:
Novellas:
- A Dead Djinn in Cairo
- The Haunting of Tram Car 015
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