I enjoyed this. The demon Bartimaeus was a delightfully unreliable narrator.His high opinion of himself and occasional overestimation of his abilities lead to much merriment. I liked the way the narrative was traded between Bartimaeus's first person account and a third person account following his young human master, the apprentice magician Nathaniel. Not only is Nathaniel magically gifted, he is underestimated by Arthur Underwood, the mid-level bureaucrat/magician who was assigned to train the boy, whom he mainly ignores. This leaves Nathaniel with the tools and talent to get in a lot of trouble because if there is anything full grown about Nathaniel, it is his own arrogance and need to prove himself. In that respect he and Bartimeaus are perfectly matched.
The magic system devised by the author is similar in trappings to others I have read, but with a new twist to make it just different enough to work for me. Lots of twists and turns and just enough loose threads left to lead to the next book in the trilogy. It was a fun read. I am happy to recommend this book.
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