It’s official. And it’s on a sticker, so it must be true. ‘Waterstones loves James Herbert’, says my copy of ‘Haunted’. We do? The whole of Waterstones? That’s quite a claim. I suppose I’d better read it in that case. It’s so embarrassing when people come into the shop and ask us about stuff our head office has already decided we love. Fortunately, with this one, they were bang on the money. ‘Haunted’ is a mighty fine book. It’s scary and lean, like a stick of ninja celery. Also (by some weird co-incidence) it introduces us to David Ash, whose latest adventure, ‘Ash’, is rocketing up the best-seller charts even as I type. Don’t worry though, Herbert’s heroes tend to be pretty interchangeable, so it’s not necessary to read ‘Haunted’ first, or his next outing for that matter, ‘Ghosts of Sleath’. All you need to know about Mr Ash is that he’s a paranormal detective (which is to say, he investigates the paranormal, not that he’s made from ectoplasm). And – get this – he doesn’t believe in ghosts. Interesting career choice. When he’s sent by the Institute of Psychical Research to look at a spooky old house he assumes it’ll be standard-grade plumbing problems, creaky floorboards, mice, draughts etc. That’s how these things are normally resolved. How wrong he is! Who would have guessed? The spooky old house turns out to be very spooky indeed. The House Called Edbrook - this makes it sound more frightening than just ‘Edbrook’, I’m not sure why, but presumably Herbert knows what he’s doing - is home to unspeakable terrors. Mr A, having carefully set up his recording devices, thermometers and so forth, is pushed into the garden pond by unseen hands, then attacked by a phantom, ‘a silhouette, a shape whose arms were outstretched, as if crucified, whose flimsy robe billowed and swayed with the currents, whose black hair spread outwards in Gorgonian tresses’. There’s no way he can pin that on creaky floorboards. Short, powerful, terrifying, ‘Haunted’ gives us Herbert doing what he does best. Many have written with more elegance, others with more charm, but few writers in this genre can boast Herbert’s ruthless skill at making scary things even scarier than they were before. Little bit formulaic? Lottabit formulaic. When the formula works as well as this, however, you’d be kind of stupid to change it.

Deciding to jump headfirst into the world of David Ash is one of the best choices that a person can make. David Ash is one of the best characters I have found in a very long time, being easy to understand as well as being much fun to read – developing so much across the three books. In this first instalment of the parapsychologist we’re thrown into a classic ghost story. It’s a relatively short story compared to the other books in the series but it works to set the scene for the following books, giving you the understanding of David Ash that you need. It is possible to read the three books in any order but it is much better for the reader if they are read in order. The biggest downfall, for me, was the predictability of some aspects of the book: some aspects are really easy to work out – not just for myself but other people who I have given the book to borrow. Regardless, it is very much worth a read.

While this was a good read and was well set in a creepy and creaking old house where the walls seemed to have a life of their own, this felt like more of a psychological mystery than a horror (it could be that I'm just hardened against such things). The story follows David Ash, a paranormal investigator sent to Edbrook to look into the haunting that the family have been subjected to over the years. In doing so he is forced to face his own past and his own ghosts, something that he has tried to avoid since he was a child. Don't get me wrong this is a good read, well written with very interesting characters, I was just hoping for something a little different that sent chills up my spine.