Book Review: ‘Haunted’ by James Herbert

It has become David Ash’s life’s work to investigate the supernatural and paranormal and, more often than not, prove that there is a perfectly mundane reason for why these phenomena occur. With a talent for exposing charlatans and fraudsters who claim to be in contact with the beyond, David is an expert in his field. When he receives an invitation to investigate strange apparitions at Edbrook Manor, David thinks the job will be a simple one – until he starts seeing the ghosts too.

James Herbert was known for his love of writing ‘chiller’ and paranormal stories. I enjoyed reading another of his ghostly novels – The Secret of Crickley Hall – a few years ago and I was looking forward to what Haunted had to offer.

Straightaway I was impressed by Herbert’s descriptive writing. His level of detail while setting the different scenes was my favourite part of the book. All the settings, from David’s room in Edbrook to the old mausoleum in the woods, were very clear and they helped me to easily visualise the locations.

Haunted includes everything you would expect from a classic ghost story: an old house, midnight terrors, unexplained noises, and chills in the air which set the stage for unnerving figures wearing long white dresses, mysterious fires, and drowned corpses intent on killing all who come near them. Haunted really does try to include as many elements as it can. Although considering the book was first published in 1988 perhaps its fairer to say that Haunted was one of the books that helped to set the standard for modern ghost stories.

With its shorter page count, Haunted is a good starting point for anyone wanting to explore the paranormal genre for the first time.

Unfortunately, while I found the plot interesting I didn’t find the story as exciting as I thought I would. Maybe if the book was longer Herbert would have had more space to set up his ideas rather than quickly moving from one event to the next. The events of the novel take place over three days. As everything happens at once I don’t think the book had enough time to build up the tension and anticipation before the next important occurrence happened. I also spent much of the novel wondering if the story took place in the present day or either the Victorian/Edwardian eras. This confusion sadly did distract me from truly enjoying the story.

For me the most intriguing parts of the novel were actually the two flashback chapters to David’s previous work with the Psychical Research Institute rather than the present mystery. Had Herbert wrote a book of short stories based on old cases investigated by the Institute I think it would have been very successful.

Haunted is a solid example of a classic paranormal ghost story. While still a good book, it didn’t have the ‘wow’ moments I was expecting that would make the story stand out from other ‘spooky’ novels I’ve read. While I don’t know if I’ll read the sequels to this book, I certainly wouldn’t dissuade anyone from reading Haunted if they wanted to give it a try.

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