The Secret of Crickley Hall

I have read all of james Herberts books and have always had trouble putting them dowe. The Secrets of Crickley Hall is just another in a long line of fantastic, gripping horror stories by this amazing author.

Out in Hollow Bay, a gloomy house (in fact, the entire neighborhood is pretty grim) is rented by a family who have recently suffered the tragedy of a missing son. But there's something wrong with this rental property. The dog hates the place. A cellar door won't stay shut. The tree swing has ideas of its own. Closets make an unearthly racket. Teeny disembodied footsteps are heard. And a naked man walks down the stairs with a wooden switch. Switch-thwack. I'm a big fan of James Herbert and this is a departure from his usual fare. Its an old-fashioned (in a good way) ghost story. Complete with a 70-year-old caretaker who supplies the back story of this former "orphanage," the psychic who's afraid of readings, a spook hunter, and spectacularly stormy weather (Herbert's setup of atmos can't be beat). There's some surprising twists and tragic turns (especially where the orphans and the lost son is concerned.) And unusual too, is the treatment of hauntings which are not grounded. (Ghosts following people . . . away from the place of the original haunting). I won't reveal anymore other than I gave it a 4 because the father, Gabe, took more than half the book to believe his house was haunted!! Engineers, what to do??? This is the perfect book to curl up in an armchair with your sharp-eyed dog in your lap. And better yet, if the branch of that birch or oak is banging on the glass panes of your window and and the rain and wind is beginning to sound like soft whispers . . . eek

The title suggested a sinister old house with a ghostly secret and the story doesn't disappoint. At 600 pages it's well worth it's money and Herbert builds up the tension nicely so that I had to read nearly all the last three hundred pages in one sitting! For fans of James Herbert's earlier books, this isn't in the same gory style...however I like both styles, and it shows the authors talent to be able to write a thrilling book that doesn't have to rely on the gory side of horror to be thrilling. I liked the characters (although I did find the husband, Gabe, a bit two dimensional) and some of the 'haunting' descriptions certainly had an effect on my vivid imagination.

I hadn't read a James Herbert book in years, not for any particular reason, it's just that none of his recent efforts had particularly appealed to me. However I heard such great things about The Secret of Crickley Hall that I decided to revisit one of my old favourite writers. Well, Herbert is back on form and how!!! This scared the bejesus out of me. It's dead creepy, the tension mounts right from the start and it never gets boring. In literary terms Herbert is up with Stephen King as the Godfather of horror, so it's a breath of fresh air to see him showing the new kids on the block just how an old master does it. It may not have the modern day MTV thrills of something like The Ruins, but if you like your horror the good old fashioned way, and written by someone of great literary ability who knows a few of the new tricks to add to his old classics then The Secret of Crickley Hall should be right up your street. Whisper it quietly but this might just be the best horror of the year....

James Herbert's latest book, The Secret of Crickley Hall, uses an old and established formula - an ageing, deserted Gothic house that has been left to decay because of some tragic event whose circumstances have been clouded by the passage of time. The villagers in the neighbourhood all have their own theories about what happened but no one really knows the truth. However, when a family - in this case the Caleighs's move in, they find the house has been haunted by these past events, and is inhabited by ghosts with 60 years of repressed anger to vent. Even though this is an old, established formula, it is also a very good one. Most horror writers use it at some point in their writing careers. (Herbert has used it at least once before with Haunted.) An old Gothic mansion is a great starting point for a ghost story, with wind and rain crashing against the windowpanes, and strange noises and visions that have either ghostly explanations or, for the more cynical in the story, more rational explanations, such as tricks of light, and wind rattling through the floorboards. (Cynics are always the idiots in these stories: in this book the Dad of the family, Gabe Caleigh, insists that nothing is wrong, and there are no such things as ghosts, while everyone else - even you, the reader - is yelling at him just to get the family into the car and drive away!) But that's what we love about these stories - the atmosphere, and the stupidity of the people being haunted. (Personally, if I saw ghostly spectres dancing around my house or if my child insisted she had a new set of friends to play with who I couldn't see, I would be out of there!) James Herbert's new book is a refreshing visit back to this old formula and fails to disappoint. It builds atmosphere, while recounting the tragic circumstances surrounding the happenings in the house, leaving you, the reader, to figure out the truth behind the mystery of what actually happened to the characters. This book has all the elements a good horror novel should. (An array of suspicious villagers, a psychic and a few covered up murders.) In sum, The Secret of Crickley Hall is a good read - a must for Halloween, when the wind and rain are pelting against the windowpanes, and the only sound you can hear is the wind rustling through the floorboards... ...