A review by inkwellimps
The Brothers Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Continuing directly after The Fear Institute, the first half of the book is Horst telling a story of how he was resurrected and setting up the Ministerium Tenebrae and Horst's new allies. Unlike in previous books, I found the vast majority of the side characters in The Brothers Cabal enjoyable (especially Miss Virginia Montgomery's Flying Circus troupe, they are a lot of fun). Horst is an engaging protagonist and I liked discovering his quirks and strengths, such as having a solid knowledge base regarding castle architecture. Details like that made me really see him as Johannes' extroverted brother. While Horst is telling his story, there are periodic interludes where Johannes makes comment which are some of the funniest scenes in the series so far.

Following Horst's story, we see the Brothers Cabal ride again with Johannes and Horst taking on the Ministerium which is interesting the whole way through (scenes that aren't action-driven have a lot of humor, and I can say I was captivated especially by this latter half of the book).
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