This is a book that I read carefully, not wanting to miss a word-play or reference. It isn’t really a book I sit down and devour, impatiently leaping from page to page. Howard’s writing appeals to the intellect, a deft mix of cleverness and blasé exaggeration. That had already happened to him once in his life, and he wasn’t keen to repeat the experience.” “Whosoever would do such a thing to my nimpty-bimpty snookums?”Ĭabal could not have been more horrified if she’d pulled off her face to reveal a gaping chasm of eternal night from which glistening tentacles coiled and groped. In this book, we get to see Cabal shaken to his core: Cabal’s tribulations are worsened as he is forced to interact with a familiar face and the tiniest twinges of his underdeveloped conscience. Howard nicely set up Cabal’s adventures, segueing him into being forced to solve a locked-room mystery. I began reading in a cranky state of mind, but my ill-temper paled in comparison to Cabal’s: “As for humanity, anything I do for it is purely by accident.” Before long, Cabal’s arrogance and Howard’s wit had me not only feeling better about my relatively benign curmudgeonly state, but outright laughing. During the flight, Cabal becomes embroiled in a locked-room mystery when the original designer of the aeroship goes missing: “The curious case of the defenestrated DeGarre and the adventure of the ersatz civil servant were inextricably linked.” He escapes on a luxury aeroship on a mercy mission delivering vegetables to the neighboring country, only first they have to pass through the mildly hostile country of Senza. I’ll wait, while the librarians amongst us recover themselves.Ĭaught by a Mirkarvian Count, Cabal uses his necromancer skills to distract the Count and escape by assuming the persona of a bureaucrat, Herr Meissner. “Cabal had been caught trying to check out a book from the library… The book was in the Special Collection, and Cabal had intended the loan to be of an extended, open-ended sort of period.” Of course, he didn’t only mean to read it: Caught by a Mirkarvian Count, Cabal uses his necromancer skills to distract the Count and escape by assuming the persona o Safe to say, no one has gone through such travails to read a book as Johannes Cabal. Of course, he didn’t only mean to read it: “Cabal had been caught trying to check out a book from the library… The book was in the Special Collection, and Cabal had intended the loan to be of an extended, open-ended sort of period.” I’ll wait, while the librarians amongst us recover themselves. Safe to say, no one has gone through such travails to read a book as Johannes Cabal. Steampunk meets the classic Sherlockian mystery in this rip-roaring adventure where anything could happen. There will be massive destruction, not to mention resurrected dead. Before they are done, there will be more narrow escapes, involving sword fighting and newfangled flying machines. His minor efforts result in a vicious attempt on his own life-and then the gloves come off.Ĭabal and Leonie-the only woman to ever match wits with him-reluctantly team up to discover the murderer. But when a fellow passenger throws himself to his death, or at least that is how it appears, Cabal begins to investigate out of curiosity. The deception seems perfect, and Cabal looks forward to a quiet trip and a clean escape, until he comes face-to-face with Leonie Barrow, an enemy from the old days who could blow his cover. Stealing the identity of a minor bureaucrat, Cabal takes passage on the Princess Hortense, a passenger aeroship that is leaving the country. This time he’s on the run from the local government. In this genre-twisting novel, infamous necromancer Johannes Cabal, after beating the Devil and being reunited with his soul, leads us on another raucous journey in a little-known corner of the world. This time he’s on the r Johannes Cabal, necromancer of some little infamy, returns in this riotously clever and terrifically twisted tale of murder and international intrigue. Johannes Cabal, necromancer of some little infamy, returns in this riotously clever and terrifically twisted tale of murder and international intrigue.