Post Harry Potter there have been many books released with the theme of a young witch/wizard fighting against bad monsters. Some were forgettable, most OK and some quite excellent. This book and the rest of the trilogy are the third kind and I daresay even better than Harry Potter.

The book is set in a modern day alternate history setting in which Britain is the supreme empire in the world. The parliament and hence the Empire are controlled by magicians who summon demons to do their bidding. The magicians aren’t particularly special like the ones in HP and don’t cast spells but read incantations in pentacles to summon the demons (traces of black magic here). As there was segregation of blacks and browns and whites during colonial times here too there is segregation between the magicians and Commoners (muggles to HP fanatics). The commoners live in a state of suppression and resort to selling their kids to magicians who train them as their apprentices and future magicians. The demons come in many shapes and sizes types ranging from the scary and powerful afrits and marids to the charming djinns (according to Bartimaeus, more on him later) down to the lesser foliots imps and mites.

The real story is about a boy, Nathaniel, sold to the government by his parents at 5, who is trained by a lower level minister-magician. He is extremely sharp and his memory is exceptional. Simon Lovelace, a young (20-odd years old) and ambitious magician publicly humiliates Nathaniel who vows revenge on him. To do this he devours the magic books in his master’s home and quickly hones his skills as a magician. To carry out his plan, he summons Bartimaeus, a 5000 year old irascible and sarcastic djinn who is the life of the whole book and trilogy. His plan is to steal The Amulet of Samarkand, a prized possession of Lovelace, who will stop at nothing to retrieve it. Doing so, Nathaniel quickly puts his own and his adopted family’s lives on high risk and tumbles into a political web so sticky he must use his own and Bartimaeus’ immense skills to foil a plot of magical espionage, murder, blackmail, and revolt.

Besides the refreshingly new plot and excellent characterization, the main innovative feature of this book is the use of alternating first-person (I said this, I thought etc.) and normal third-person point-of-views which really adds immense sheen to the package. He expresses himself though footnotes at the end of the page which contain tidbits of information and his opinions on various subjects and on the scene which is currently being enacted in the book. Bartimaeus, in his sarcastic and downright funny thoughts and actions really make the book a must-read for all Harry Potter fans especially and is also awesome for non-fans like me. You’d be doing a great disservice to yourself if you don’t give this a try.