This felt like the lazy novelization of a rambling, listless Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign whose GM was a raving racist. With TWO antagonists as interesting as a monomaniacal, petty-noble hypnotist and a shape-shifting, millennium-old serpent-woman, one would have expected a little more...I don't know...SUSPENSE. Even the romantic subplot was blah; I think the protagonist was made of LITERAL cardboard. Props where given: there is an explosion in the last chapter, but that payoff is hardly worth the invested time. :(