PTOLEMY’S GATE

The trilogy wraps up with excitement, adventure and an unexpected wallop of heart and soul. Three years have passed since Bartimaeus told Nathaniel that Kitty was killed by a golem. Nathaniel lives as John Mandrake now, coldly producing government propaganda. Mandrake continues to summon Bartimaeus as a slave-djinni despite the suffering it causes. Commoners (including Kitty, secretly alive) stumblingly rebel against the magicians (politicians). But when a real uprising bursts forth, it takes a shocking form and requires stunning sacrifices and terrifying levels of trust from all three protagonists. Bartimaeus’s trademark footnotes are less snarky this time, including those in the chapters about his relationship with Ptolemy in Egypt from 126 to 124 b.c. The djinni, and the rare humans who care, don’t solve one profound problem: Magicians get their power from summoning unwilling djinni into slavery. However, Stroud masterfully weaves together four characters and an unearthly realm of existence in an explosive culmination that reaches back to the first two volumes and infuses them with layers of psychological and moral complexity. The volumes in this trilogy should be read in order. (Fantasy. YA)