I listened to this as an audiobook, and Simon Jones' narration was awesome--he does such a great job with all of the voices. Probably the major reason I find the series interesting is the character of Bartimaeus, the demon--he is so entertainingly witty and sarcastic especially in Simon Jones' voice. I'm not sure I would have liked it nearly as much if I had read the books. I also like the character of Kitty Jones. Nathaniel (Mandrake) goes from bad to worse in this volume. And that is a puzzling thing about this trilogy, because from the beginning I assumed he was going to change and become nicer and he still has not. There's a lot of exciting action in this one, and I love the parallels between his world and ours (with magicians-wealthy people/politicians, demons-slaves, commoners--everyone else.) It is a grim world, making this more realistic than fantasy.