Act 2 brings main protagonist to Manchester and St. Anselm college where he expects to find answers related to the eerie ancient book with secret of eternal life.

Entire atmosphere is oozing scare but our intrepid protagonist seems to be impervious to it until finally he is overwhelmed by terror (after a truly shocking sequence of events) and from that point on he starts down the spiral of madness.

Again, do note that Black is very strange character - does he ever stand and say "wait a minute, what is going on"? He is more than sure that all strange things he sees and witnesses are in his head and not in the real world. Testament to this are Black's entries in his journal.

He is very ... impressionable - I mean just see how easily photographer made him believe that going down the stairs is basically diving into its own mind. Story is going to some conclusion point but after reading act 2 it is not possible to figure out where or what is that conclusion point.

Art is as in previous tome just beautiful.

Story wise, this act (unlike act 1) starts with the bang and ends with the puff. I especially liked our protagonist meeting real-life authors of weird tales of the period. It truly got me wandering what can we expect in act 3.

Main annoyance for me from act 1 is present here too - again main goal of all of the strange creatures is to use people like sex toys. Almost mandatory sex scene includes very disturbing scene of what might be called self-rape. Very, very disturbing scene very much like torture scene from Altered Carbon (novel not the TV show).

Recommended to fans of horror and Lovecrat's lore. ( )