In P. Djèlí Clark’s latest novella, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, our protagonist is not a cat, doesn’t have a tail, and technically she’s not dead but undead, but she most certainly is an assassin. Eveen the Eviscerator is as badass as it gets. In the trade hub metropolis Tal Abisi, Eveen works for a guild of assassins run by a former tough-as-nails-and-twice-as-sharp sailor, Baseema. Promised to Aeril, goddess of knives and culinary delights, Eveen must spend the next few centuries killing whoever is unlucky enough to end up on her contract. With no memory of her past life, she fills her non-murdering time by creating tiny sentient glass figurines, hanging out with her handler Fennis, and indulging in her world’s version of penny dreadfuls. She lives by many codes, but the main rules are that Aeril will not accept contracts on innocents, an assassin cannot kill anyone not specifically contracted, and an assassin cannot refuse to complete a contract they accepted. Those who do violate those rules find themselves facing the wrath of not only their guild leader but the goddess herself. Eveen has never not completed a contract. Until tonight.
It’s the last night of a three day festival celebrating a face-off between the Clockwork King, the Pirate Princess, and the Golden Bounty, a mechanical woman created by the king and wooed by the pirate. Their battle reshaped the city in myriad ways, including turning an entire neighborhood into a magical quarantine zone known as The Shimmer. Instead of partying, Eveen is sent to a tower to take out a young woman, Sky, who shares a surprising connection with her: Sky, as it turns out, is a younger version of Eveen. Sort of. Now the plot turns from an assassin caper to a whodunit as the two women try to figure out who could be powerful enough to drag someone across time and manipulate Eveen into accepting a contract she could never fulfill. Who could hate the Eveens enough to do this?
Clark has long since proved his bona fides on fantasy fiction, and The Dead Cat Tail Assassins is no exception. He’s masterful at crafting vividly detailed worlds with characters that feel realistic and lived in. Not a detail is wasted or meaningless, even if it seems as much at first glance. He gradually feeds us the story behind the festival in a way that helps the reader also sort out the mystery, through both red herrings and the truth. Even the way the characters dress and the strange foods they eat help the reader get a sense for who these people are outside of this one event.
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The Dead Cat Tail Assassins
The guild, too, adds layers to this world. One of the assassins sent after Eveen and Sky is an old man in the body of a child. Another is a pile of animated bones. We meet a quartet of sister assassins who try to match Eveen’s fists of fury with gloating. Baseema is ruthlessly ambitious, to the point where you can never tell if she’s trying to help Eveen or hurt her. Probably both. Fennis is a foodie trying to network his way into a food critic career but who got waylaid by the assassins guild, and he brings that odd couple flair to everything he does. In Sky, Eveen sees a version of herself she never knew and mourns the loss of. In Eveen, Sky finds a version of herself that is as inspiring as it is depressing. It’s more than just knowing Eveen and Sky have pasts, but you can actually feel that history moving through their contemporary choices and reactions.
This is the first of Clark’s novellas to be set wholly in a fantasy world rather than alternate historical fantasies—Ring Shout in 1920s Georgia; A Master of Djinn and The Haunting of Tram Car 015 in early 1900s Cairo, Egypt; The Black God’s Drums in post Civil War New Orleans. However, it’s not his first book-length foray into second-world fantasy; that honor belongs to Abeni’s Song, an excellent middle grade novel with African mythology influences. Despite this novella being set in a fictional world, there are a lot of real world references. One of my favorite recurring gags is a trio of low level criminals being derided as edgelords and neckbeards. The story has a lot to say about abuse of power, the difference between doing what’s right and doing what’s just, and men feeling entitled to women’s bodies.
Brimming with African diasporic influences and pop culture references, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins is exactly what you’d expect from P. Djèlí Clark but with enough newness to keep you hooked. It’s light and refreshing, yet also thoughtful and provoking. It’s a fun, wild ride, and I’d love to see more of this world in the future.
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins is available from Tordotcom Publishing.
