★★★★★ Andreas Gehmeyr 20.05.2023 amazon.de

Synopsis: It is Cairo, 1912, and the world is different than ours, because supernatural creatures like djinn and angels have entered our dimension forty years ago. Cairo is a modern and lively city as important as London or Paris, where the kings and emperors of Middle Europe gather to smooth the upcoming tensions leading to war.Agent Fatma already prevented the universe’s destruction last summer in The Dead Djinn in Kairo and now she investigates the mysterious murder of a secret brotherhood. Al-Jahiz was the one to open the doors and summon the djinn before vanishing from the eyes of the public. Now he seems to gather his strength again but Fatma believes him to be an imposter.Review: I just loved the short stories and novellas in the same setting, first of all the novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (review), then the novelette A Dead Djinn in Cairo (review), and a little bit less The Angel of Khan el-Khalili (review). Consider me a fan of this author.Fatma is a fascinating character, breaking the boundaries as a Muslim with her fondness for male European suits and her non-conforming sexuality. Her overpowered sidekick and lover is Siti, a sexy kickass worshipper of Egypt’s old pantheon.The novel’s initial scene once again points out the social discrepancies of colonialism and racism in that setting: the secret brotherhood is led by English Lord Worthington dedicated to collecting Egyptian antiquities as bored white old farts would do at that time.A Master of Djinn dives deep into Egyptian mythology, socio-cultural questions, gender, and community. It’s also about fun and brings a lot of action into the mix, which keep you on your toes for a long time, just like a James Bond movie.Why not a better rating? Because it felt less dense than the previous shorter works, it didn’t add much new to the previously stated thoughts and setting. So, yes, I enjoyed it much, but it wasn’t good enough for four or five stars. Especially ridiculous was Kaiser Wilhelm from the Holy Roman Empire who was supposed to be funny but ended up as an unbelievable character.3.5 stars, rounded up for no particular reason

★★★★★ Elena Pohl 20.05.2023 amazon.de

I was really excited to read this one and at the beginning, it got better and better. The author does great world building, with a rich and deeply saturated background of characters, stories and the whole book universe. I was thrilled to learn there is really great and diverse representation of gay characters, people of different religions, ethnicities etc. The story itself is not bad - it took a while to take off at some places and in the end, one thing came after the other very quickly and the relevations were not as exciting as I hoped for.Two things I found unfortunate: First of all, as someone not so versed in the cultural context the book is set in, I lost a lot of richness by not knowing some special words that were used. e.g. religious wording, words from another language, traditional clothing and accessories that were described but that did not mean anything at all to me. The author would do well to describe those - at best with a short sentence directly in the book, or at least with a glossary.Second of all, and this I cannot pin down, but it did really annoy me - i found it hard/slow to read. Its not like the sentences are overly complicated, but their constellation is at times

★★★★★ Cathy H 20.05.2023 amazon.de

Fatma, Siti and Hamed are back. Promising start with likable characters, but a very slow plot. It took me two weeks to make it a third into the story, with several days of not wanting to pick it up. I thought it was me and was disappointed that this wasn‘t a fun rollercoaster ride, sweeping me along. I almost abandoned it, but instead skimmed through the denser passages in the middle to make some progress. Less filler would have been good.For example the convention in the middle with all those dignitaries served no real purpose. It added to the complexity of the world, but it did not really bring the plot forward or could have happened as a shorter scene. Maybe Clark had another short story/novelette in his hand and blew it up to novel length by expanding the word count, without actually adding significantly to the story?I did like the development of Siti a lot. Fatma felt a little more one-dimensional than previously and Hamed and Onsi sadly where only small side characters. Nonetheless it was fun to encounter them again.I liked the last part of the book, so if I disregard the middle, this was a good book. The Djinn are complex, multi-faceted and definitely not one-dimensional. It‘s nice that even the bad guys have personalities and are not just victims of circumstance. Still, this book was nowhere nearly as good and entertaining as the prequel stories.You can definitely read this as a stand-alone novel, but for more enjoyment I recommend to first read the two novelettes and the short story that came before this: Dead Djinn in Cairo, The Angel of Khan el Khalili, The Haunting of Tram Car 015.