A Master of Djinn

Cairo in 1912 is the greatest city in the world, and it is magic that made it so. Forty years earlier the mystic al-Jahiz cut an opening into the realm of the djinn and vanished through it, leaving Egypt transformed into a power that put the European empires on the back foot. Agent Fatma el-Sha'arawi of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities is the youngest woman in the department and dresses in immaculate English suits and a bowler hat, which she is entirely aware annoys people. When a secret brotherhood of wealthy men devoted to al-Jahiz is burned alive in a single night, the killer announces himself as al-Jahiz returned, and the claim finds an audience in the streets faster than the Ministry can contain it. Saddled with an eager new partner and assisted by her lover Siti, whose loyalties run to older gods, Fatma must work a case that runs through djinn, angels, aristocratic collectors and a peace summit that could tip the world into war. Clark writes it as a brisk supernatural procedural with a genuine mystery under it, and his alternate Egypt is the real pleasure: crowded, argumentative, and drawn with obvious affection.