Review by Ian Keogh

There has existed for centuries an organisation dedicated to tracking down and containing supernatural threats: the InSpectres. Rather improbably they’ve involved people famous for reasons other than that purpose. At the dawn of the 20^th century a troublesome manifestation known as Spring-Heeled Jack has returned, and Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, Bram Stoker and a young girl called Agatha have become involved.

This was all explained in Volume One, and it’s mystifying why creators David R. Flores and Jarod Hunter Roe wouldn’t provide their own summary rather than presume the only people who’d buy this continuation would have read the previous volume. Anyone picking The InSpectres off a shelf is going to be impressed by aspects of Flores’ art, which is a big selling point.

A problem with the opening volume was co-writers Flores and Roe being unable to move a plot forward at any pace, but that doesn’t apply to the continuation. An early appearance of Spring-Heeled Jack causes a chase, but one both limited by available technology of primitive cars, horse and cart, and trams, and heightened by supernatural abilities. Thereafter any slowing down is only slight.

While the art is good, a greater sense of place provided by backgrounds would have improved the book’s first half, but greater time is expended on the remainder in which the figures are also looser.

Everything seems to have been settled by halfway through, but it hasn’t been, and plenty of clever twists await. Houdini, who has been pretty much a sounding board until now, is given a role befitting his talents, rather sketchy information about Robert Louis Stevenson is explained and anchored, and there’s also a reason for Agatha’s prescience.

Volume One supplied a captivating idea and intriguing art, but moved too slowly. Volume Two is a creative flourishing.