"Johannes Cabal the Necromancer" by Jonathan L. Howard

"In this uproarious and clever debut, it's time to give the devil his due. Johannes Cabal, a brilliant scientist and notorious snob, is single-mindedly obsessed in heart and soul with raising the dead. Well, perhaps not soul...He hastily sold his years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. But now, tormented by a dark secret, he travels to the fiery pits of Hell to retrieve it. Satan, who is incredibly bored these days, proposes a little wager: Johannes has one year to persuade one hundred people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever. To make the bet even more interesting, Satan throws in that diabolical engine of deceit, seduction, and corruption known as a "traveling circus" to aid in the evil bidding. What better place exists to rob poor sad saps of their souls than the traveling carnivals historically run by hucksters and legendary con men? With little time to lose, Johannes raises a motley crew from the dead and enlists his brother, Horst, a charismatic vampire (an unfortunate side effect of Johannes's early experiments with necromancy), to be the carnival's barker. On the road through the pastoral English countryside, this team of reprobates wields their black magic with masterful ease, resulting in mayhem at every turn. Johannes may have the moral conscience of anthrax, but are his tricks sinful enough to beat the Devil at his own game?"

Ever since I saw a short blurb about this book in a professional catalog, I've been dying to read it (no pun intended). One of my coworkers is a huge debut novel nut, and this sounded right up her alley, too. Between the two of us, we pressed for our library system to pick up this title, and they did - ONE COPY. Which is assigned to our branch, thank you very much! With good reason, too; after both of us devouring this wonderfully wicked work, we'll be recommending it to lots of our patrons.

I really loved the cross between a Faustian tale and the old Bradbury carnival of "Something Wicked This Way Comes" - it works. In fact, I'd read somewhere that the author got the idea for this after reading Bradbury's piece, wondering what sort of person would run such a carnival and what the back story would be. Johannes isn't really what you could call a nice guy, and you have to wonder if it's because he is soulless when we meet him. Maybe yes, maybe no, but he's decided that his "experiments" always go wrong precisely because he doesn't have that soul. Thus the wager with the Devil. And you know the Devil is a sneaky bastard!

The most interesting character is his brother, Horst. As the book jacket says, he's a very charismatic character, and yes, he just happens to be a vampire. He's also a living embodiment of Johannes's conscience, trying to remind him constantly that this is the Devil they're dealing with, and to be on the lookout for a double cross. He also knows the "dark secret" that fuels Johannes's desire to conquer Death, and tries at every turn to persuade him not to go down that road.

I was reminded a bit of authors such as Christopher Moore while reading this book, although I think Howard doesn't go for the actual laughs as often as Moore. While quite often funny, there's a deeper, much sadder underlying theme. I know - how often do you get that? Do yourself a favor and don't miss this carnival when it hits your town. Then tell all your friends about it, too!