Johannes Cabal The Detective

Author: Jonathan L. Howard  
Publisher: Headline
Price: £7.99
Availability: Out Now

Necromancer Johannes Cabal returns in the second book of the Cabal series. Those who are familiar with Johannes Cabal the Necromancer can expect as much humour and wit in this novel. The book opens to an imprisoned Cabal sharing his cell with a variety of felines. Cabal is offered the chance at life if he can bring an inconveniently dead emperor back to life in order to give an important speech. The speech goes fascinatingly badly, but Cabal manages to escape. Securing stolen papers that identify him as a civil servant, Cabal escapes on a flying ship. There he finds an unwelcome acquaintance from his past, an unusual cast of characters, the terrifying world of politics, and a good old-fashioned murder mystery.

Cabal stays true to his amoral self throughout the book, for better or worse. In all his sarcastic glory, he works to solve the mystery on the airship. Author Howard manages to write a great mystery, without losing any of the fun of the first novel.  The setting is both futuristic and 19th Century, and makes for a bit more fun in this comic fantasy novel. While the book is quite different from the first in the series, it stands quite well on its own.

8/10