Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A Master of Djinn is a magical-realism murder mystery set in a steampunk version of 1912 Cairo. From the start, I wanted to love it! It had so many elements that I enjoy, but the execution was lacking on almost every level. What started out as an intriguing mystery quickly devolved into an unfocused mess. I’m genuinely not sure what this book was trying to be because - while there is a mystery going on - the story doesn’t play like any mystery novel I’ve ever read. Agent Fatma - our leading lady - is pretty terrible at her job and doesn’t do much investigating. Many of the answers and victories are just handed to her by random side characters we barely know. On the rare occasions when she does investigate, she often misses the obvious making for a frustrating reading experience.
Fatma is a member of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities and the story opens with her using her wits to talk down a powerful Djinn. Based on that, I thought this was going to be a story about a woman whose job had given her ties to and knowledge of the magic in her world. She would serve as the reader’s bridge between the world we know and the world of the novel. Instead, there were multiple scenes where I knew what was going on while Fatma was totally oblivious.
For example, there’s a scene where Fatma is interviewing a Djinn and, when she asks a specific question, he clearly cannot answer. His magic also starts going all wonky. I immediately went, “oh, something is controlling him” and I was right! Fatma did not figure that out until the last third of the book and I think this interview happened within the first third. She also immediately gives up on this source even though he obviously knows something. One bad interview and he’s clear from further investigation for no real reason. That’s pretty terrible detective work, but - as best I can tell - Fatma’s incompetence was totally unintentional. I think she’s supposed to be seen as smart and interesting, but the story rarely backs that up. She’s so bad at investigating that the story is easily twice as long as it needed to be!
I listened to the audiobook for this one and it’s over 15 hours long! The first 10 hours are mainly filled with Fatma having no idea what’s going on. She doesn’t even realize who-done-it until the final 2 hours even though there weren’t many red herrings in this one. I knew who did it by the 5-hour mark, but I couldn’t figure out why or how. I had some guesses, but nothing made much sense until I got to the last third of the book where a minor side character finally handed Fatma the plot. We learn about the macguffin that has been at the heart of the mystery the entire time and have some actual clues as to what the villain is trying to do.
This is problematic because it makes the first two-thirds of the book feel largely pointless. There are a handful of scenes that add value to the end of the novel, but most of it could have been cut without issue which was super annoying because the ending felt rushed and weirdly underdeveloped. Major story-relevant elements of the world’s lore and magic were never explained so I was left sitting there wondering how the climax could feel so out of nowhere when both the plot and the villain’s motivations were cartoonishly simple.
That was yet another problem for me. When you give me a 15-hour-long story, I’m expecting a well-developed and ideally complex villain. What I got felt more in line with something from a children’s cartoon. It was incredibly disappointing. There is literally a small group of people working together on this plot and we know nothing about any of them! They’re all just evil, mustache-twirling racists who want to rule the world because power and all that jazz. I’m not even sure what the villain’s co-conspirators were getting out of this deal because they were so horribly underdeveloped. I don’t even remember how many of them there were and I certainly don’t remember their names. The novel would have been much better if we had more events where the villain was in attendance and got some actual characterization so that their motivations felt genuine and understandable. As-is, the story was so focused on not revealing its incredibly obvious twist that - in terms of characterization - the villain was basically a new character that we’d never met before. We even get an evil monologue to explain the villain’s motivation because heaven forbid the story develop it organically as a major focus of the plot!
So if the first 10 hours of the 15 hour run time isn’t full of mystery, then what is it filled with? I honestly don’t know how to sum it up. There’s a lot of random elements that pad the story out without adding much substance because they’re all so disjointed.
For example, the story starts with agent Fatma getting a new partner forced on her. A rookie named Hadia. I liked Hadia, but it feels like she’s mainly there so that Clark can have two flavors of female character. On the one hand, we have Fatma who goes around in snappy suits, isn’t all that religious, and is clearly interested in women (whether she’s bi, pan, lesbian, or something else is never addressed so I’m not labeling her). On the other hand, we have Hadia who is a more traditionally feminine and a devout muslim, but also very non-steryotypical as you get to know her. It allowed the book to include some fun cultural elements and discussions of topics like feminism and prejudice, but didn’t do much for the actual story. Storywise, Hadia’s biggest contributions are some family connections that move the plot forward. You could cut her, give Fatma connections from her job, and the story would still work. You could even argue that it would be better since Fatma would feel like a more active character who was established in her career. As is, she’s pretty darn passive for a detective.
If Hadia and the discussions she’s used for were the only padding, then I wouldn’t be complaining. Most stories can get away with a little padding and nothing about Hadia was bad in a vacuum. The problem is that the book is full of elements like Hadia. There’s a ton of narratively unimportant side characters, world building, and political events to the point where it felt like Clark was more interested in those elements than the mystery that the book was supposed to be about. Most of the time, these side elements weren’t even well developed. For example, there’s a peace summit that features a bunch of world leaders and at it we randomly learn that other countries have connections to other magical creatures like fairies and goblins. Does this matter to the plot? Nope! It doesn’t even come up again. These random facts are just thrown at the reader, leaving them with many questions that will never be answered. At least, they won’t be answered in this book.
I can tell that Clark has a ton of cool ideas for his world and I desperately wanted to love it, but I’m walking away unable to remember much of this book because it was such an unfocused mess. It threw so much information at me and none of it felt connected so none of it stuck. I’ll probably forget the book entirely within a few months which really is too bad because this had potential. It would have been far better to make this a tighter novel with a stronger villain and save some of the world building for later entries in the series where the world building in question connects to the story.
Now that we’ve done the spoiler-lite version, allow me to rant about the villain for a minute because their motivation and actions make no gods damn sense to me. I pegged Abigail as the villain pretty quickly as she was the only person who could have done the crime, but a part of me kept wondering if there was going to be a twist because she lacked a motive. Yes, she was obviously treated as the lesser child due to her gender, but it sounded like her father was generally loving and indulgent. That made it hard to picture her brutally murdering him and all of his colleagues. His transgressions simply didn’t fit the punishment she doled out. I kept waiting for the story to reveal some past wrong that would make Abigail’s actions make sense. Instead I got a magic ring that made the murders feel pointless.
Why the hell would Abigail need to murder her father and pin it on her brother if she had an army of djinn at her beck and call? She’s talking about becoming the freaking queen and starting wars! I don’t think she’d need to worry about material wealth at that point. The murders are also the main reason Abigail’s plan failed. If she had left her father alone and just carried out her plan in a warehouse somewhere, Fatma would never have known that the Worthingtons were tied to the unrest going on in the city. Akhmed would also have never started a revenge quest that led him to attack Abigail in her moment of triumph. And if Abigail’s motive was anger at her father, then wouldn’t it make more sense to keep him alive to show him that she’s the better heir?
All of this could have been fixed if the Worthington family was actually developed, but they’re all so flat that it makes Abigail come across nonsensically. None of her actions made much sense to me and I really wish she’d been a fully fleshed out character so I could have enjoyed her defeat. As is, I was just happy that the book was over so I could stop trying to make sense out of the seemingly random events that kept happening.
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Murder, Alcohol, War
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
medium-paced
Solid 2. Perhaps I'm just not in the right mindset. I really tried very hard to like this book. The pacing was uneven though, with set pieces appearing for the benefit of the plot and with a single mindedness demanding more suspesion of belief than I could manage. The "plot twist" was painfully evident and so the reveal fell flat and most of the book felt stretched out without any reason. Additionally, the relentless gender highlights kind of detracted from the world building. I came away with little understanding of the characters except that they were relentlessly female (without any actual nuance therein, just the gender). Similarly, the book felt riddled with convinient powers and last minute healing just to get to the next big set piece. I can't imagine re-reading this again ever.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
4/5 stars for this fantasy steampunk-y novel set in 1912 Cairo. It’s a detective story in a world with djinn where magic is a part of everyday life. Definitely a fun story told very well by P. Djèli Clark!
Close to 4 stars, so rounded up.
The only other thing I had read before by Clark was "The Haunting of Tram Car 015," which is set in this same world, a steampunk-and-magic version of early 20th century Egypt. It was cool to get immersed in this world of djinn and a Ministry of Supernatural.
The plot, however, did drag a little, and I don't know if Clark meant to be so heavy-handed at times about where things were going, or that it was a commentary on Fatma not being as competent as she should be. Hadia, as the newbie, seemed to grab some of these things more quickly; more of Hadia, please! Which is not to say I dislike Fatma as a character, it was just occasionally annoying.
The only other thing I had read before by Clark was "The Haunting of Tram Car 015," which is set in this same world, a steampunk-and-magic version of early 20th century Egypt. It was cool to get immersed in this world of djinn and a Ministry of Supernatural.
The plot, however, did drag a little, and I don't know if Clark meant to be so heavy-handed at times about where things were going, or that it was a commentary on Fatma not being as competent as she should be. Hadia, as the newbie, seemed to grab some of these things more quickly; more of Hadia, please! Which is not to say I dislike Fatma as a character, it was just occasionally annoying.