Johannes Cabal gave his soul to Satan in exchange for powers that would make him able to defeat death. But the more he researched, the more he realised he needed his soul back to continue his experiments. So he went back to Hell and made a deal where he would get his soul back if he could damn 100 souls in a year with the help of an evil travelling carnival.

There are two main types of books: the "just one more chapter" ones that translate into sleepless nights and the "anti-insomnia" ones that actually make me doze off. This book falls into the second category after a surprising good start. Johannes Cabal is a Harry Dresden wannabe (see [b:Storm Front|47212|Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1)|Jim Butcher|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1419456275s/47212.jpg|1137060]), but lacks all the personality of the latter and dare I say, intelligence. For a scientist, he is not smart at all and I do not understand why he does not care. He does not get across as a human character. His brother Horst is a much better character, I think I would have preferred this story from his point of view. Nevertheless, the beginning is quite funny and I was interested in knowing more, but then it sort of gets lost along the way with a lot of weird pointless passages, and the end is not that great. It is still entertaining, hence the 3 stars.