Someone's got to run those creepy, Ray Bradbury-style carnivals, right? 
 Meet Johannes Cabal. He's an antisocial, scientifically-minded necromancer. 
 Johannes starts the book by breaking into Hell, in a darkly comic scene that wouldn't be out of place in Good Omens (the books overall tone, by the way). He wants his soul back; the undead-raising powers it purchased are no good to him if a healthy dose of random Satanic magic always makes his experiments unreliable. 
 So the Devil gives our antisocial anti-hero a bet . . . 
 Johannes gets an undead-staffed carnival train, and one year to collect a hundred souls. Of course, he's never understood concepts like "fun" or "human company," so he'll need the help of his debonair vampire brother, who Johannes left locked in the local family crypt. 
 You might think you could suss out the entire plot. I did, and I was totally wrong. 
 I mean, I assumed it'd be a simple redemption Faust story with stock characters, only taking really people's souls before the "I've Learned My Lesson" ending. 
 Just when you think it's hit it's comic stride, 75% through the book brings use the hard choice, the temptation of the What the Hell, Hero? moment . . . 
 . . . and the Hero goes through with it. 
 And, wonderfully, the world reacts. 
 You see, I've read books before where the Hero passes a dark moral line that changes the tone, but the book never comments on reflects on it. Mary Gentle's Grunts, for instance, was all fun and games until the . . . um. That one scene. The famous one. The one so triggery, I don't even want to describe it. 
 In Necromancer, some of the characters shrug and move on. "Honestly, we expected that." A few recently introduced side characters suddenly take center stage in the madness. Characters from earlier return in deadly earnest. 
 And, definitely my favorite part, a somewhat unexpected character becomes the moral heart of the book. Howard is a smart cookie; he realizes that, once his protagonist has crossed the line, someone else has to become the person the audience can root for, and he provides magnificently. 
 Then, as all the pieces spiral towards the deadline, I really cared about what happens to everyone. Things were suddenly serious without being discordant with the earliest part of the book. 
 And then there's the Lovecraft chapter. 
 Necromancer is great. I read it in two days, and loved the ride. It was so good, I'm almost tempted to stay away from the sequels, for fear of lowering quality. It's a perfect, self-contained story. 
 Still, I'm probably as good as Johannes when it comes to resisting temptation.