The Brothers Cabal
A Novel
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"The Brothers Cabal is smart, funny, and dark in all the right places. Imagine Mycroft and Sherlock-if one were a polite vampire and the other were a surly necromancer-up against an army of monsters and magicians. Like Pratchett and Fforde, Jonathan L. Howard puts it all together and makes it look effortless." -Christopher Farnsworth, author of Blood Oath
Horst Cabal has risen from the dead. Again. Horst, the most affable vampire one is ever likely to meet, is resurrected by an occult conspiracy that wants him as a general in a monstrous army. Their plan: to create a country of horrors, a supernatural homeland. As Horst sees the lengths to which they are prepared to go and the evil they cultivate, he realizes that he cannot fight them alone. What he really needs on his side is a sarcastic, amoral, heavily armed necromancer.
As luck would have it, this exactly describes his brother.
Join the brothers Cabal as they fearlessly lie quietly in bed, fight dreadful monsters from beyond reality, make soup, feel slightly sorry for zombies, banter lightly with secret societies that wish to destroy them, and—in passing—set out to save the world.*
*The author wishes to point out that there are no zebras this time, so don't get your hopes up on that count. There is, however, a werebadger, if that's something that's been missing from your life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the conclusion of The Fear Institute, necromancer Johannes Cabal lay nearly dead at his own front gate. At the start of his fourth adventure, he wakes, nursed to health by his brother, Horst, a vampire who was last seen as a pile of ash. Johannes and the resurrected Horst must stop the Ministerium Tenebrae, a confederation of supernatural beings at least one of whom holds a deep grudge against Johannes bent on turning the country of Mirkarvia into a kingdom of monsters. The brothers team up with arcane secret societies and a troupe of female stunt-pilots, and confront discomfiting parts of their own natures: Horst battles his vampiric instincts, and Johannes is beset by his nascent conscience. Where Johannes is prickly, Horst is charming, and they are an enjoyable double-act. But most of the novel is a flashback to Horst's episodic journey to his brother's gate. Even if more of the brothers together would have been welcome, Howard nevertheless ably spins an entertaining and surprisingly emotional yarn that promises entertaining future trials for the Cabal brothers.