The Dead Cat Tail Assassins: Clark is a master of the short novel form

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

P. Djèlí Clark has in past works show himself to be a master of the short novel form, and that holds true with his newest, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, a fast-paced mystery romp full of dark humor set amidst a twisting turning tale. I had a blast reading it and can’t imagine that reaction won’t be widely shared amongst those wise enough to pick it up.

That odd title (it gets explained in the opening scene) is the name of an assassins guild working in the port city of Tal Abisi. Our main protagonist, Eveen (aka “The Eviscerator”) is one of their best and a great creation — funny, charming in a rough sort of way though her propensity for violence and even torture (even if it metes out a quasi “justice”) makes it difficult perhaps for her to win readers over fully, resilient, persistent, smart, and, oh yeah, dead. Turns out at some point in her past life she’d agreed to pledge herself to Aeril, Matron of Assassins, and so was resurrected without any memories of her former self.
How that had happened, she didn’t know. No clue about who she’d been in life either. Not a single solitary memory … about the only thing she could say for certain was that she’d done this to herself. She’d been shown the contract and everything — the one agreed to in life, giving herself to the goddess she now served … to whom she was bound, body and soul, in death.

As one might imagine, revelations will be forthcoming about the void that is her past life. But I actually don’t want to say much at all about plot as the first major twist hits pretty early, followed by a number of others. The story opens with Eveen receiving her night’s contract from her “worker friend” Fennis. Suffice to say the hit does not go well, and for reasons best left unstated, Eveen ends up the target of her own guild as she works to solve the book’s major mysteries and stay alive while doing so (and also keep another major character alive as well). Pretty much everything else I feel comfortable noting about the plot is in the first paragraph: it’s twisty and turny, fast-paced (though Clark finds time for a few quieter, more introspective moments), keeps the reader on their toes, is filled with action (usually in the form of Eveen’s fights against her fellow assassins), and is very, very funny.

Eveen could have just been your stock quipped assassin character one sees again and again, but Clark avoids that pitfall by imbuing her with a distinctive personality at the start and then developing her further via her experiences in the narrative that change her or revelations about her that show a different, more complex side. And even if the story doesn’t dwell on it, or even highlight all that much, there’s a deep sadness underlying her cynical quipping: the lack of memories, her desire to know why her past self did what she did, her clear ache to have a sense of community despite her jaded exterior, and the way everything in her “life” is muted by her state of being: taste, pain, emotions —all there but deadened. One wonders if it would be easier on her if she just felt nothing at all rather than these pale shadows of life.

Other characters are equally strong regardless of how much page-time they get. Each feels distinctive, each comes fully alive, and most are just as funny albeit in different ways, whether we’re talking about Baseema, the head of the guild; Fennis, the gourmand-slash-assassin agent who came up with the guild’s odd name (and even printed up business cards), his quirky thaumaturgist brother, or even the goddess herself (one of my favorite running bits of humor is how her name could also be translated as Lady of Knives, so “lots of those resurrected by Aeril’s priestesses go into the culinary services. Most of the best chefs in Tal Abisi are her undead thralls.”

As for Tal Abisi itself, it shines as the setting for the narrative. Literally in some cases, as part of the city is still under the glow of a long-ago sorcery known as “The Shimmer.” There’s a whole great backstory to the city that gets doled out in pieces throughout the novel involving giant mechanical creatures, a pirate, and a sacrifice made for love. That historical event is celebrated in the multi-day festival that serves as the backdrop to the story’s action. We also get multiple reference to a series of “Terribles”—basically pulp fiction novels Eveen devours with titles like “Asheel the Maniac Hunter” or “Terrors of the Demon Lands.” Honestly, it’s amazing how good a job Clark does in conveying such an immersive sense of place in so few pages.

Between the great city setting and the fantastic character creation, though this story wraps up fully resolved as a deeply satisfying standalone fantasy, one can’t help but hope for more “Terribles” involving Eveen the Eviscerator in the City of Tal Abisi. Highly recommended.