Haunted (David Ash)

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David begins to perform forensic examinations of the house, trying to detect evidence of paranormal activity. Complicating the investigation is Christina's continuous flirtation with David, and his own infatuation with her. However, older brother Robert is against their friendship, and the two have a suspiciously close relationship. David begins having paranormal experiences. Christina, who had originally told David both her parents died in India, admits that in fact her mother drowned herself in the lake and Nanny Tess was the one who discovered the body. David believes it is the trauma of this which is causing Nanny Tess to see the ghost of Mrs. Mariell. There was an extremely graphic sex scene that caught me by complete and utter surprise, and Herbert's talent for graphic descriptions is evident throughout the novel. His explanation for the cause of the trouble in Sleath is interesting but wasn't completely surprising. From the very beginning the reader soon becomes accustomed to Ash's bad habits, cynical view on life and overall downbeat traits, of which followers of Herbert's work will recognise as a somewhat recurring theme within his novels. Ash is certainly not a polished, goodie-two-shoes type of character, and this in itself gives the novel a harder and more true to life feel to it. Everything is unusual… Everything is unexpected and unpredictable… And with every elapsed hour things turn more and more mysterious… Herbert released a new novel virtually every year from 1974 to 1988, wrote six novels during the 1990s and released three new works in the 2000s. "I am very insecure about being a writer", he stated in the book Faces of Fear. "I don't understand why I am so successful. And the longer I stay that way, the better it's going to be, because that's what keeps me on the edge, striving if you like."

Herbert's own interjections as the storyteller are a slightly irritating mis-step but the story is decent enough. Some of the creature descriptions veer too far into silliness, undermining any threat or fear they might hold. Nash soon starts to uncover the terrible history that haunts the small village, with an evil that spans decades. With Nash’s investigations getting closer to unveiling the hideous truth, so the ghostly visitations become stronger and in doing so, much more deadly to the citizens of Sleath. Francis, Clare; Upton, Ondine, eds. (1996). A Feast of Stories. London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-0-333-65340-1.This was not an outright simple supernatural ghost filled chiller as the previous Ash books had largely been. With this book we are taken to a secluded secret castle which contains a vast variety of unexpected and at times incredulous characters and events. I grew up reading James Herbert, and I honestly consider myself a fan of his writing. This was disappointing.

Nobody True continues the theme of life after death, being narrated by a ghost whose investigation of his own death results in the destruction of his illusions about his life. Herbert described Creed as his Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The character Joe Creed is a cynical, sleazy paparazzo who is drawn into a plot involving fed-up and underappreciated monsters. So much time is spent on random one-off characters we don't care about - bullshit character portraits for people with absolutely no significance to the story.

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This final novel from the late and great Mr Herbert was published just over a decade ago. I have spent the past year catching up on all of his other books I had yet to read which included the other two David Ash novels. This is the final in the Ash trilogy and it closes his story well. It is a wonderful piece in itself, keeping you interested from start until end. David Ash is a really loveable character (one of my favourites of all time, in fact) and out of his three stories this is by far my favourite. With your mind being filled with questions from the very start, curious to find out what the truth of the story is. There are those moments of heartbreak but overall it isn’t as heart-breaking as some of the books I have worked my way through, with those moments of lightness which brought a smile to my face.

Herbert also nails the characters here, something he doesn't always manage. You understand their struggles and grief, care about them (most of them, anyway), and despair as everything starts to go to Hell, dragging them with it. The problem with Herbert is, to my mind, that he has always tended more towards slasher-fic than true horror. Oh, and the porn. Dear gods. The porn. I mean, I liked him when I was a teenager and still thought that Iron Maiden’s Eddie was just the coolest thing ever, but as I grew older I came to realise that a chainsaw-wielding maniac and some explicit passages about blow jobs do not a horrifying story make. Speaking of which, the book does a pretty good job of blending the biblical and the supernatural with our own world, creating a story in which it feels as though almost anything could happen. The stakes are pretty high, but perhaps not as high as they are in books like The Rats where the future of humanity itself is at stake, and the plot keeps on plodding along towards the finish line with an unstoppable momentum.Stephen King gushes over James Herbert; I don't see why. Herbert is a decent writer and storyteller, to be sure; but, I found nothing fascinating about HAUNTED. For a haunted-house story, it was pretty clear from the beginning that Herbert never intended to do anything different from the already established sub-genre of horror fiction (how can a writer expect to top THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE?). With that said, it does have an interesting protagonist, an anti-hero named David who is battling his own personal demons while trying to debase the supernatural. But the supporting cast in this novel is laughable. The "medium" who succumbs to what can best be described as stage-fright is one of the sorriest ends to a character I have ever read. Overall, this is a fast read that suits the Halloween atmosphere. Perhaps because it was written in the early 80s some of the pizzazz has been lost. Perhaps. You could do worse for a "fright" read. That being said, I am still going to read some of Herbert's other titles, they just won't be moving to the top of the TBR pile any time soon.