While the sound of Allied and Axis gunfire reverberated around the rest of the world, Palestine enjoyed a honeyed peace. The 1936 Rebellion was a long way behind. The shameful execution of a young Palestinian called Tareq during Ramadan had faded from most memor- ies. The British battalions and the police force under Inspector Challis were circumspect and only arrested obvious trouble-makers. And for people like Violet Dhaishi, Westernised, fleshly, materialistic, life continued with its pleasant round of shopping and dinner parties.

Then al-Ghal, certainly not an obvious trouble-maker to his friends, was deported, and the event precipitated changes in everyone's life. Even Violet, in the end, despite her admiration for the British, had to admit that things were never the same again. For Maliha, Ghal's wife, it was the beginning of the end. The beginning of the events which are not written about in history books: the grief of families, a village burned down, sudden unprovoked murder. And the events which are: the barrels of explosives rolled into the crowds at Damascus Gate, the Deir Yassin massacre, the United Nations partitioning of Palestine, the bombing of the King David Hotel.

Where the Jinn Consult is a natural successor to Soraya Antonius's first novel The Lord. It sheds light on a corner of the world the West has wilfully misunderstood. It is also a furious, poetic and brilliant evocation of a nation nailed to the cross of history, a passion play of Palestine.