Indelbed is a lonely kid living in a crumbling mansion in the super dense, super chaotic third world capital Of Bangladesh. His father, Dr. Kaikobad, is the black sheep of their clan, the once illustrious Khan Rahman family. A drunken loutish widower, he refuses to allow Indelbed go to school, and the only thing Indelbed knows about his mother is the official cause of her early demise: “Death by Indelbed.”
But When Dr. Kaikobad falls into a supernatural coma, Indelbed and his older cousin, the wise-cracking slacker Rais, learn that Indelbed’s dad was in fact a magician—and a trusted emissary to the djinn world. And the Djinns, as it turns out, are displeased. A “hunt” has been announced, and ten year-old Indelbed is the prey. Still reeling from the fact that genies actually exist, Indelbed finds himself on the run. Soon, the boys are at the center of a great Diinn controversy, one tied to the continuing fallout from an ancient war, with ramifications for the future of life as we know it.
The blurb puts this as a “darkly comedic fantasy adventure”, and it really is: it’s witty, eccentric, funny and strange, often all at the same time! I can’t say much more about the plot than the blurb does above without spoilers, but the adventure certainly doesn’t stop at the Djinn ‘hunt’. The rest involves submarines, sort-of-dragons, diplomatic shenanigans, an airship, paperwork and some fast talking – amongst other things.
I loved this book; it’s full of strange places, even stranger characters, and enough plot twists to knit with. The characters you hate at the start turn out to be more complex; the characters you love all have darker sides, and for most, you’re never quite sure where you – or they – stand. The worldbuilding is fabulous; sparing and never overdone, meshing perfectly with our mundane world, but with details that pick out the oddities perfectly. The humour is dark, unexpected, and interwoven with some surprisingly heart-breaking moments. The plot twists, turns, doubles back and goes off in completely unexpected directions – this is one book that can’t be described as predictable! I loved the couple of major twists, but even the more minor tangents were surprising and made me kept turning the page.
I sincerely hope there’s a sequel in the works – Djinn City ends on a plot cliffhanger, and I definitely did not want the last page to be the last!
© Kate Coe, December 2017
Djinn City by Saad Z Hossain
Published October 24th 2017
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
238 pages
