Johannes Cabal, Necromancer was bizarre, intriguing, inventive, and funny. Johannes Cabal, Detective is all of that and more, plus mystery. Jonathan L. Howard’s second foray into the wild (and often wacky) universe that Cabal glides through takes the reader from incipient revolutions to airships to mountains containing the greatest evil the world has ever known, with a lightness of touch that still manages to make what may be one of the most abstruse and arrogant of all protagonists amazingly appealing. The arrogance is almost understandable. After all, Cabal has braved (and bested) Satan and the denizens of Hell, exactly how much trouble can anyone else cause him?

Well, it turns out, quite enough to frustrate our intrepid hero, if not enough to really crack the shell of self regard he has built around himself. Still on his search for the perfect method of necromancy, Cabal has appeared in Mirkarvia, a small, slightly backwards country on the verge of revolution. Cabal’s plan, to quietly slip in, just as quietly “permanently borrow” a book, and silently slip out, falls through, and he is imprisoned in a dungeon that is remarkably vermin free – which, in Cabal’s world, means that the cats will be there to torment him soon. A quick bargain of raising of the dead for freedom, an even quicker show-down with the not-unexpected villain reneging on the deal, and Cabal is fleeing the country aboard the Princess Hortense, the most advanced passenger airship in the world, a marvel, a beacon of hope for the starving (naturally, it is on a humanitarian mission), and a place where, very shortly, the passengers will begin to drop dead. Cabal’s most useful skill must remain hidden in order to preserve his life, and so the necromancer becomes the detective, with varying amounts of success and a fillip of style.

Cabal has never been completely defined by his occupation; whether detective or necromancer, his goals have always been more important than his actions, his ends more important than whatever means he chooses, at that moment, to employ. Currently, it is convenient for Cabal to assume the identity of Her Meissner, minor cog in the Mirkarvian civil service. Of course, when the deaths begin, Cabal cannot contain his curiosity and finds himself fleeing danger thousands of feet in the air. Cabal is evolving though, and the return of his soul in the previous book adds the complication of a conscience to his travels through the world. He is, very reluctantly, beginning to show signs of humanity under the rational investigator. It is this humanity, always barely shining under the surface, that makes Cabal so compelling.

Howard’s touch is light, and his comedic timing is hysterical, but Cabal is more than a sarcastic intellectual. He is a completely unique creation; a compelling character who is driven to find answers to terrible questions, who will eliminate, in a variety of fashions, those who stand in his way, but who, in spite of himself, in spite of everything that goes on, feels compelled to rage against the unnecessary death of a young man:

Cabal checked [for a] pulse at his throat and wrist, but the already cool skin told him it was a vain effort. He rocked back on to his heels, glaring angrily at the corpse. “Stupid!” he spat. Schten thought Cabal was talking to him for moment, but then realised Cabal was addressing the dead man. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Life is such a precious gift! To squander it… And for what? For some idiotic concept of honour? You fool! You utter, utter…

Howard has created a complicated character, travelling through a world that contains both extreme and ancient evil, and the opportunity for inventive revenge. Chase scenes and classic detective tropes twine around one man’s search for the most effective way to raise the dead, and hilarity sits side by side with quieter introspection and humanity.

Johannes Cabal, Detective is a wild time and a riveting read, and, hopefully, the second in a long series of adventures.

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