Reviews with content warning for Animal death - The Haunting of Tram Car 015

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 is about two men who are investigating a.. well, a haunted tram car, and it's not as straight forward as they thought it'd be.

I enjoyed how the seemingly unrelated background cultural/societal/political information was woven within and throughout the story, with all the loose ends neatly tied up. The story takes a few twists and turns, which adds to the fun.

All in all it was a satisfying and quick read.

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thereaderfriend's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Had higher expectations for this :/ the potential was there but not executed well. Did like the wacky mysterious vibes. Didn't like the women's suffrage subplot to the main plot. That wasn't good. Didn't like the MC but the rest of it was decent. Definitely a starting novella for the author. Liked the monster action and world building. Looking forward to Fatma's book.

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aardwyrm's review

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adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I really like Clark's work and all the weirdness and reflection on human frailty and fundamental potential for goodness and cool monster action is here, though you can kinda tell it's an earlier work (lot of "as you know, Bob" dialogue), the exposition dumps sit lightly because the bizarre worldbuilding is a large part of the draw.

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bookswithjelena's review

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adventurous funny mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I LOVED this novella. I quite enjoyed the first short story in this series and fell in love with the world and hoped to read more from those characters. This one was no different. I hope there are more fiction coming from Hamed and Onsi . Can't wait to expand on this world and find out more about Fatma in the next novel from this universe.

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awpatton's review

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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bluejayreads's review

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

I grabbed this because I thoroughly enjoyed the first prequel novella in this series, A Dead Djinn in Cairo, and also this was available as an audiobook so I could listen at work. I didn't realize this one didn't follow Fatma until I started it, but that was okay because it ended up being enjoyable anyway.

This follows Agent Hamed Nasr, a coworker of Fatma who showed up a little bit in A Dead Djinn in Cairo but got a whole book to himself this time. Agent Onsi Youssef just recently graduated from the academy, and Hamed is both trying to mentor him and train him how to deal with actual cases and actually get the case solved, but I like that he also respected Onsi's book knowledge and ideas and didn't assume he had all the answers because he had more experience.

This book is still a novella, but it's long enough that there are some twists regarding the unknown entitiy haunting the tram car - what it is, what it wants, and why it's there in the first place. I enjoyed it a lot, because after how surprisingly straightforward A Dead Djinn in Cairo was, a few unexpected twists were nice.

And, of course, I love the world - where a rogue sorcerer punched a hole in the divide between our world and the spiritual world, and the supernatural power enabled Egypt to throw out colonizers and become a global superpower in a world run by the power of gears and magic. It's steampunk and supernatural and Middle Eastern and great.

Though I wish this book had followed Fatma, I'm pretty sure the actual series does (it's named after her, after all), and I'm looking forward to reading full-length novels investigating supernatural nonsense in this world.

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