This closing installment is the best yet, as the fates of the djinni Bartimaeus, the magician John Mandrake (true name: Nathaniel), and the commoner Kitty Jones grow ever more tightly entwined.

Yet Nathaniel obsessively continues to send the djinni in search of those who plot rebellion against the British Empire.

Carrot-headed creatures and cock-suckers; vaginal openings and malicious doings; empty rooms filled with sunlight, dancing djinni smoke, and tiny mythic beings on pedestals; men, women, bodies dreamt from realms where there is no use for gender: capturing both the surreality and irreality of life in timbres of sunrise and sunset, Clemente is in silent conversation with himself about what it means to give form in paint to the ferocity and tenderness of the imagination.