The Tyrant's Nephew

Book 3 in the Chronicles of El’Jisal

To be published 2006 by Random House Australia.

Omar is 13 and is the privileged only nephew of Haroun bin Said al-Alakah, also known as The Vampire, the feared tyrant of Mesomia, who has kept the country in a reign of terror for many years. The Vampire not only rules Mesomia with fire and iron, and has an extensive secret police network, but he is reputed to have dark magical powers, and to keep retinues of sorcerers and necromancers in his various palaces, who cast spells that help to keep him in power. He is also reputed to be invulnerable, by having struck a deal with Iblis, evil lord of Jehannem, to protect him against all harm. There were rebellions against his rule in the early years, but not recently, for Mesomians are too terrified to move against him. Mesomia is a dark, dangerous place, where only secret police and sorcerers thrive. The Vampire has rarely been seen in public in recent years, and some say that is because abuse of the dark arts, and his deal with Iblis, have turned him into something hardly human any more..

Not even Omar has seen his uncle for some time. Omar’s father is dead and he lives with his mother, the Vampire’s younger sister, in a palace some distance from the city. Though he has heard some of the stories about his uncle, he does not believe them, though he is not close to his uncle and indeed rather afraid of him. But he does not think about any of it too much, until the fateful day when he is summoned, by the Vampire’s vizier, the creepy Chief of Police, to a meeting with the Vampire. The Vampire has decided that Omar is to be his heir, as his own sons have all been killed, and he intends to bring him up in his ways in the palace..

But on their way to the Vampire’s palace, the car is ambushed by masked assassins. The Chief of Police and the bodyguards are all killed, and Omar himself escapes only through the help of a young beggar girl, Latifa, who helps him to hide in an alleyway. Eventually, the attackers melt away, and the girl helps him to find a safe way to one of his uncle’s palaces. And that’s when the horror begins. The Vampire determines that the assassins were Shadowalkers, legendary warriors from the north who were thought to have been wiped out. And far from being grateful to Latifa for her help, the Vampire decides she was in league with the Shadowalkers, and orders her to be captured..

It is the beginning of Omar’s rebellion against his wicked uncle..and the beginning of a terrifying adventure in which he will attempt to save Latifa—and discovers the true meaning of courage, and friendship, and the answers to many secrets...

This book, number three in the Chronicles of El’Jisal, after Snow, Fire, Sword and The Curse of Zohreh, will be a heart-stopping, exciting, spooky and powerful adventure. Based partly on Iraq, and the terrifying reign of Saddam Hussein, it also draws from extraordinary stories in Iraq about the reputed magic powers of the dictator and his family and cronies, who surrounded themselves with sorcerers, psychics and fortune-tellers. However, as with all the books in this series, it is also very much its own thing, its own world, the rich, interesting world of Dawtarn el’Jisal. It follows on from The Curse of Zohreh, though it is not, strictly speaking, a sequel, just as The Curse of Zohreh follows on from Snow, Fire, Sword, but was not, strictly speaking, a sequel to it.