On my last trip to Africa, I finished the book I had been reading before my first connecting flight, so I had to dig into my Kindle library to find a new read. That was when I stumbled upon the Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. It has probably been in my library for years, but I knew the book was highly acclaimed, so I dug in. And I was not disappointed.
Two things stood out quickly. The first was its medieval Arabian setting, reminiscent of One Thousand and One Nights. It’s a richly-drawn world, brimming with magic, with frequent references to the djinn and ghuls, a focus of the novel. But it’s the descriptions of the setting—the magnificent city of Dhamsawaat, with its coffee shops, scholars’ quarter, and sprawling palace, ruled by a new Khalif who is a dim shadow of the great man his father was—that truly bring the story to life.
The second thing that stood out was the characters. Each one was interesting and complex, and the story was told from their alternating points of view. The main character is Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, an aging, overweight ghul hunter who wields a form of magic meant to return the ghuls to the carrion from which they came. His sidekick is Raseed, a young, devout dervish (a holy warrior) who is a master of the sword but naive in the ways of the world and in the ways of women. That brings us to Zamia, a young Badwai (Bedouin) tribeswoman gifted with the power to transform herself into a fierce lioness. Add to this Adoulla’s two closest friends and former colleagues, the alchemist Latiz and her mage husband Dawoud, and you have a compelling cast of heroes to take on the novel’s villains.
The story begins when Adoulla and Raseed investigate a series of murders outside the city, only to discover the killers are ghuls and a shadowy creature described as a man-jackal who serves a mysterious sorcerer. The same ghuls killed Zamia’s entire tribe, and once the evil finds its way inside Dhamsawaat, the fate of the Khalif, his heir, and the entire city hangs in the balance.
While the supernatural plotline dominates the novel, there is an equally interesting subplot involving the Falcon Prince, a Robin Hood-like revolutionary determined to topple the Khalif and save the people from his tyranny. While Raseed views the Falcon Prince as a traitor and a thief, Adoulla is sympathetic toward the Prince’s cause, adding to the tension between them. The author does a good job with both storylines, which converge in the book’s gripping finale.
The novel is subtitled “Book 1,” but the author has never written a direct sequel, and the story wraps up nicely without one. That said, I would like to visit Ahmed’s magical world again. This is the first novel I’ve finished in 2026, and it will be a hard act to follow.