Sepulchre

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But the prose is too simple to evoke atmosphere, and the plotting's too simple for there to be anything to work out.

From early on, the tale reads like a somewhat farfetched thriller with a decidedly paranormal twist. Vampiric Draining: By Cabala recitation, Kline attunes to, and absorbs, the draining life force of slain Human Sacrifice victims. I enjoyed the bodyguard/physical security aspects of the novel, especially Halloran’s workman like approach to his job in spite of a less than appreciative client.

It does get an extra point for the interesting use of Sumerian myth-history, which sets it a little apart from other horror of this sort, but make no mistake: this is no Moon.

That said, I did enjoy the read and was mildly entertained, but I can't say it is my favourite Herbert book and I'm not sure I would feel the need to read it again. On internment in a concentration camp and living through Soviet tyranny, Janusz Palusinksi resorted and became addicted to cannibalism. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Naturally she has sex with Halloran, which is very rapey however that's ok as Halloran figures she enjoyed it. Behind the solid stone walls that encircle the property, Kleine’s expansive country estate offers numerous avenues for an attack if one was to come. It gets a bit chaotic and absurd towards the end, but then absurdity is something Herbert does really well.

Although the characterisation is somewhat undeveloped and wooden, Herbert manages to mask this to a certain degree by maintaining these strong personal traits (such as the constant ingrained professionalism) to maintain some degree of basic characterisation. Focusing so much on each character's dark side makes them come across as bizarrely one-dimensional ciphers. For a long while, the book reads like a crime thriller with added details of ancient eastern and Sumerian culture (which eventually connect up with the present tale) similar to some of the crime thriller novels of Shaun Hutson.

Unfortunately, Sepulchre, my introduction to the man, nails the "not great" part of that better than the "fun" one. There is a lot of violence and it is extremely gory - in fact James Herbert seems to go out of his way with every book to find new ways to shock and disgust you. Structurally, one imagines that the horror portion's meant to be a slow building of atmosphere and dread, that the thriller is meant to be giving us time and subtle clues to work out some elaborate web of deception for ourselves. He is, from the first, an enigma in the way that only a cliché can be: There was something about his eyes… He looked like a man who could be cruel. Perhaps a must for Herbert fans, and maybe a decent introduction to him if you have not read the guy.