Book review - Bartimaeus: The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud

Of course, Jonathan Stroud’s teen-read anti-hero is not all bad – well, not quite! For a start he has a wicked sense of humour which helps us to forgive his deadly designs and dastardly deeds.

Bartimaeus, the shape-shifting djinni with a vast arsenal of spells at his disposal, is making a welcome return after a five-year exile in that mysterious Other Place.

Stroud’s best-selling fantasy trilogy featuring the irrepressible Bartimaeus cast a spell over young readers when the books were released between 2003 and 2005, and now the quick-witted spirit is back with his beastly box of tricks.

Don’t worry if you didn’t catch the earlier books because The Ring of Solomon is a prequel to the trilogy and follows Bartimaeus’s adventures during the reign of the wise old king in the 10th century BC.

We find Bartimaeus feeling very low-spirited as he mooches about the court doing menial, dead-end jobs – it shouldn’t happen to a go-getting demon who has reached the tender age of 2,000 years old.

Everybody is being held in thrall by Solomon’s all-powerful Ring which has an aura so bright that it once made Bartimaeus cry out in pain.

The influence exerted by that scrap of gold on his finger keeps the king’s magicians and their spirits nicely in line, and the threat of its use hovers over all.

But the king has a dangerous enemy...Balkis, the Queen of Sheba, would like to see him dead and steal the ring, his source of power and majesty.

There is only one person she trusts to carry out the perilous mission and that is Asmira, the beautiful and fanatical teenage girl who is both chief of her guard and an accomplished assassin.

There’s only one person who might be willing and capable of helping her...but can Bartimaeus keep his head while those around him literally lose theirs?

Fast-paced, sizzling with sarcasm and fizzing with fun, The Ring of Solomon is a thrill-a-minute ride which captures the same brand of magic, mischief and mayhem as The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem’s Eye and Ptolemy’s Gate.

And Bartimaeus’s hair-raising and hilarious escapades might just whet your appetite to seek out the original trilogy and find out what the scaly-winged scoundrel did next...

(Doubleday, hardback, £14.99)