Return of the Djinn

"In The Age of Magic, Anything is Possible." What would the Age of Magic be without the Arabian Nights? Aladdin and his magic lamp; Ali Baba and the 40 thieves; genies and djinns and ifrits, oh my! Flying carpets, desert palm trees, and harems filled with voluptuous women. That Moorish architecture, and oh the clothes: turbans, fezzes, and curled pointy shoes. Belly dancers, and the Dance of the Seven Veils. The bazaar and the café. The magical city of Baghdad, with its spires, keyhole arches, and minarets glittering more brightly than the Emerald City of Oz. And then there's vampire Sharon Mordecai, a prominent character in every Halos & Horns novel since the first book but noticeably absent in the previous installment, the ninth book in the series. Where was Sharon? All we were told was that she was on a case with her spectral private investigator partner Kara Islington. Readers got a clue at the very end of the previous book when Ursula Fenris, teenage daughter of Sharon's BFF Pandora, was polishing an oil lamp she had been given by the mysterious proprietor of an even more mysterious curio shop. Kara's ghostly form wafted from the lamp's spout with the dire message that she and Sharon had been captured by a djinn. But how on Earth did they end up in such a predicament?