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Due to the success of his first campaign involving the Amulet of Samarkand, Nathaniel, now fourteen, has been appointed the youngest representative ever to the Office of Internal Affairs, and has been devising traps to capture members of the Resistance--a secretive group of commoners who are determined to undermine the ruling class of magicians. When a magic-sapping Golem's surprise first attack... More

Due to the success of his first campaign involving the Amulet of Samarkand, Nathaniel, now fourteen, has been appointed the youngest representative ever to the Office of Internal Affairs, and has been devising traps to capture members of the Resistance--a secretive group of commoners who are determined to undermine the ruling class of magicians. When a magic-sapping Golem's surprise first attack is labeled an act of Resistance terrorism, Nathaniel reluctantly summons Bartimaeus for help. Meanwhile, a zealous young member of the Resistance, Kitty Jones, is planning to rob the sacred tomb of the great magician Gladstone, and turn the power of his buried magical instruments against the spell makers. The towering clay Golem and its shadowy master unites the destinies of Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and Kitty together in one fateful night--unfortunately, that night is much too slow in coming. Stroud's second book is far too long and gloomy, focusing more on the priggish Nathaniel and wronged Kitty than the dijinni readers have come to adore. Fans of Jonathan Stroud's breakout hit, The Amulet of Samarkand, may be a little disappointed to discover that Bartimaeus features so little his second book. While Stroud cleverly uses the class war between the ruling magicians and the disgruntled commoners as a metaphor for current political and social clashes, the text suffers overall from a lack of the dijinni's famous facetious footnotes. Avid fans are left skimming the slow parts and hoping that when Bartimaeus escapes his servile bonds he will be given more space to make them laugh. --Jennifer Hubert

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