It oughta be a movie: A Master of Djinn, by P. Djèlí Clark
My husband bought me this book for my birthday after seeing me devour the Daevabad trilogy - and I’m so glad he did because the best bits, the elements that hooked me, are not included in the blurb! It did make clear that the story is set in a 1912 alternate-Cairo, and the main character is a lady agent solving magical crimes. That’s moderately intriguing. But they couldn’t spare a sentence for Agent Fatma’s impeccable bowler hats and suits, her amazing girlfriend, or the adorable rookie partner she doesn’t want to take on who proves indispensable? What about the villain being able to burn people alive without damaging their clothing or the room? What about the dude who’s slowly turning into a crocodile? The title lets you know there will be djinn, but there is no mention of the other magical creatures. Even the steampunk elements only come up in a promotional quote, not the summary! I know with mysteries you want to avoid spoilers - but come on. Anyway, ignore the slightly formulaic-sounding blurb: This is a very enjoyable, fast-paced fantasy mystery with some terrific female characters. And it would translate very well to screen!
The basic setup here is that in the late 19th century a Soudanese1 mystic named al-Jahiz opened a portal between the magical and ordinary worlds and then vanished. This changed the balance of power in the world, with some countries like the US rejecting magic and others like Egypt embracing it so effectively they were catapulted to world-power status. Not everyone is happy about this change, of course: The British have been losing their empire on a more accelerated timescale than in the real world, and in Cairo a secret society has been collecting al-Jahiz relics with the aim of better understanding his power2. But then a man in a golden mask claiming to be al-Jahiz turns up and burns them all. Agent Fatma of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities gets called in to investigate.
1. That’s how it’s spelled in the book, where Soudan is a Sufi-Marxist republic.
2. Not with much respect, mind you, considering the people involved. “Dalton was obsessed with mummies – part of proving his theory that Egypt’s ancient rulers were truly flaxen-haired relatives to Anglo-Saxons…Archibald was as much a racialist as the next man, but even he found such claims rubbish and tommyrot”
We first meet Fatma while she's working a different case involving someone trying to sell a bottle containing a djinn, and this was the scene that first made me think of the film adaptation possibilities. First, there’s Fatma’s outfit: Bobbed black curls under a bowler hat, an all-white suit “with a matching vest that looked sublime on her russet-brown skin. Fatma ran fingers down the length of a gold tie, certain to show off the glittering cuff links on her dark blue shirt. ‘Jealous?” The kid snorted again, folding arms across a tan kaftan. Definitely jealous. ‘How about you give me what I came for, and I’ll send you to my tailor’” She might be undercover, but that isn’t a costume – that’s just how she dresses. Fatma had just won a bet by conjuring a realistic boat on a river from hookah smoke. Did I mention she carries a swordstick cane too? Then there’s the djinn the kid unwisely looses:
“When the vapor vanished, a living, breathing giant was left in its wake: with skin covered in emerald scales and a head crowned by smooth ivory horns that curved up to brush the ceiling…His massive chest swelled and retracted as he took deep breaths, before opening his three eyes – each burning like small, bright stars.”
He is not pleased to be woken from his nap by some annoying humans, but Fatma manages to talk him into not murdering anyone and just going back into his bottle. Yep, I definitely already like this protagonist!
I feel like, after that intro, it’s probably not a spoiler to mention that Fatma has a girlfriend, right? However, given the whole “Gentleman Jack” vibe, I sort of expected any love interest to be softly girly in contrast…but nope! Siti is a tall, powerful goddess of a woman who can rock a ballgown and then pull out and assemble a blunderbuss from the parts she had hidden under it. Think the head female warrior from ‘Black Panther’, only she’s the one with big-cat powers! The other main female character is Fatma’s new partner Hadia. She comes across as this keen but awkward rookie – but she is annoyed that Fatma appreciates her crime scene drawings and affinity for research while assuming she doesn’t have field skills. The reader might also assume Hadia is conservative based on the contrast between her hijabs and Fatma’s suits, and that this could be a source of conflict, or that Siti might be jealous of Hadia. But these characters are not about to waste time on such nonsense when there’s a murderer to catch, which I appreciate! There’s also the head of the magical forensics team, who was the first woman agent at the ministry; a gang of female thieves known as the Forty Leopards; and Lady Abigail Worthington, the daughter of the man who ran the secret society, who are all fairly important to the story.
Because the story follows Agent Fatma’s POV, the reader has a chance to figure out the mystery along with or even before the main characters. I worked out who the culprit was fairly early, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story because A) I wanted to find out if I was right, B) it wasn’t obvious in the “Gasp! The dude who wears all black with a sinister moustache turned out to be evil?!” way, but rather “I know how mystery books work - it’s gotta be the person you’d least expect, right?” and C) the story keeps moving with a lot of high-stakes drama and tension, so instead of sitting around going “Figure it out already! Jeez!” you are instead on the edge of your seat wondering if the characters you’ve gotten attached to are going to be OK3. Part of climax feels a bit like a rip-off of a Doctor Who episode4 – and a slightly silly one at that – but that didn’t bother me much either because it was clearly a dangerous situation for Fatma and Siti, and it was not at all clear if they were going to succeed in stopping the villain and make it through alive. It also gave us our first clear look at the djinn perspective on these events, which was cool.
3. Speaking of which, Siti has a secret she’s been hiding from Fatma that is relevant here. It is a good one, but I wish Clark had used slightly more subtle wording when she is introduced to avoid the reader correctly guessing and then being vaguely confused (“Wait…so is that just some role-play thing they do? Or maybe it is a goddess power thing?”) until it turns out they were right from the start.
4. I won’t say which, because it would be a spoiler. But anyone who’s seen David Tennant’s run as the Doctor would know what I mean! (There’s also a room or two that’s bigger on the inside).
As you might expect, this story touches on a bunch of social issues – sexism, colorism/racism, colonialism – but it doesn’t really delve deep into any of them. That’s mostly OK; it would be hard to do so without messing up the pacing for this particular story. For instance, while Fatma is clearly discreet about being a lesbian, no one who figures it out has a problem with it. That’s not what I’d expect for 1912 anywhere in the world…but this is an alternate reality with magic, so having certain forms of prejudice be weaker or entirely absent is fine. This approach can be a positive, allowing readers with that identity to that identity to just relax for once5, and helping all readers imagine what the world would be like if we could just let that prejudice go. The position of women in this reality is kind of confusing, however. Women can’t vote in any of the countries that are discussed and are rare in most professions. At the same time, the Agency is under pressure (from who?) to hire more women, and Fatma and Hadia are often met with surprise or skepticism but not the hostility or even violence that the first wave of women in a male-dominated job (and many afterward) tend to experience. Similarly, Siti faces racist comments for her dark skin, but we never witness her getting harassed by Fatma’s colleagues, say, or being denied a job. This inconsistency is odd in a story where proving herself in a man’s world is a big part of the hero’s characterization, and the villain’s motivation is also partially frustration at the prejudice they’ve faced.
5. Not in this story, to be clear. Fatma doesn’t assume everyone’s going to be OK with her relationships, and so the reader can’t assume that either.
In terms of the police aspect, I was more comfortable with this “spooky cop” setup than with the one in ‘Midnight Riot’: the Agency is out in the open and thus subject to public scrutiny, and they have holding cells designed for djinn and tools that enable an arrest, so the agents don’t have to just murder non-human suspects! In fact, despite all the action scenes Fatma never kills anyone in this story – though she was reluctantly willing to let Siti shoot the villain when it looked like it was necessary to stop the end of the world - which really shouldn't be as refreshing in a cop story (magical or otherwise) as it is! That comfort does mean the reader might not confront some of the more troubling aspects of this system. However, given the critiques of inequality that are raised, and the fact that Fatma realizes near the end that she’s been policing djinn for years without actually understanding them, this might be something Clark will explore in future books.
Adaptation issues:
If you could get enough budget to do this as a live-action movie, the set designers, costumers, visual effects people, and fight choreographers could really have a field day. But that’s the key, of course: half-assed effects would be quite a let-down when it comes to a story with so much visual punch. If you couldn’t get the budget, doing it as an anime would be an excellent choice as well – the magical creatures, the fashions, and the fight scenes would lend themselves very well to the art form. Especially in live action, it would be important to cast actors or voice actors with the right ethnicity and skin tones. I could absolutely see Danai Gurira (who played Okoye in ‘Black Panther’) reprising a similar role as Siti. Fatma and Hadia are both supposed to have dark hair and eyes, but Fatma should be shorter and darker-skinned – she is described as looking like she could have mixed North- and Sub-Saharan African ancestry. It’s actually distressingly hard to think of an actress meeting that description who is actually of Middle-Eastern descent (rather than, say, Latina) and the right age! But this would be a good chance for a casting call to discover someone.
Incidentally, a film or animated adaptation would probably enhance the mystery aspects, as the viewer would have to sort out clues from a fuller visual field, not simply the things the writer describes the main character noticing. An adaptation would also be a good chance to fix the inconsistently-depicted sexism. Option 1: Have it be more like the 1970s-80s, where women can legally vote and own property and work in most professions but are still under-represented and under-appreciated (more so than is still the case now, I mean). This would entail some character motivation tweaks but would match the level of discrimination Fatma and Hadia face at work in the book. Option 2: Bring out the true 1912-level patriarchy, which is going to cause considerably more difficulties and danger for our protagonists, but which would make certain other aspects of the story much more believable.
