There was a time when I read everything James Herbert wrote but sometime after he moved from Hodder I kind of lost interest in horror fiction. At one time I was a huge fan and always wrote to the author after reading each book. James, nice guy that he is always wrote back. I remember reading an interview with him in the long gone Fear Magazine and thinking I want to be just like this guy.
Recently I've started to discover his later books and recently I read and enjoyed Once. However Crickley Hall I listened to on audio book and enjoyed every moment.
James is Britain's answer to Stephen King - his books sales are well over 40 million and he has been responsible for many horror/supernatural classics - among them the brutal Fog and The Rats, the beautiful Fluke and Magic Cottage and the surreal masterpiece The Spear.
The Secret of Crickley Hall is billed as a classic ghost story and it is that but not from the M. R. James school but more from the world of Poe filtered through the Hammer horror class of chillers. It's all Gothic splendour, dim lighting and chilling screams. It also has a gut wrenching climax and although horror is no longer my reading matter of choice I still have room for several of the horror masters and James Herbert is among them.
The story sees Gabe and Eve Caleigh trying to rebuild their lives after the traumatic disappearan
ce of their five year old son. No body was ever discovered and the fate of the young boy tortures both parents - it's the not knowing that is the worse thing. And so they see fit to move to the remote Devonshire property, Crickley Hall. At first the story builds slowly but then the paranormal activity builds up and we learn of Augustus Cribbin, a sadistic school master who once ruled with an iron hand and of the death of Cribbin and the children in his care in a tragic flood that took place during the Second World War. The book is part gentle ghost story and part full on horror and it is, like all Herbert's best work, genuinely scary.The Audio Book is read by Steve Pacey and split over six discs - production values are high and the listener is easily sucked into the thrilling story. If you like classy horror fiction then you'll want to get this - on audio or printed book it matters not. Just get it.
4 comments:
I, too, used to read a lot of horror fiction, and like you Gary, I stopped reading it when I got older. Herbert was one of the authors I read, so maybe it's time I tried him again.
Horror is my second choice of fiction reading.
Early Herbert - ie The Fog and The Rats trilogy I enjoy but like King they seem to have failed to thrill in their later books. Maybe, it is the need to write doorstops that fail to grab me.
Richard Laymon on the other hand can write a doorstop sized book and keep me interested.
Shaun Hutson still does the business without resorting to big books. But then a man who can write to an Iron Maiden soundtrack can only have admiration.
I'm ashamed to say that I had never heard of Herbert until now. It sounds delicious and the perfect type of horror story I like. I will have to look for him next time at the Borders.
I have not read this one but I've liked a lot of Herbert's books, especially "the Dark," which is a great horror novel.
Post a Comment