Gah. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? There you are, pottering about, minding your own business, when all of a sudden you’re in the mind of a serial killer. You see his gore-soaked hands strangling, crushing, slicing. You feel his wickedness, share his depravity. You hear the victims’ cries. Thoroughly shaken, but mindful of your civic duty, you tell the police. Who promptly assume you’re making a confession. You’re not, obvs, you’ve got any number of witnesses to confirm you were nowhere near the crimes, but that doesn’t stop people wondering, doesn’t stop the lurid speculation in the tabloids. After the killer’s tracked down, topping himself hours before the police can arrest him, you start a new life in the Channel Islands, teaching computer studies at a girls’ school. And then it starts all over again. James Herbert‘s ‘Moon’ is a very scary book. While the rest of his output can hardly be described as knockabout fun, he seems determined in this one to take us further into the darkness than we have ever been before. There are only so many times in this life you want to read sentences like ‘Gloatingly, it bit into the heart of the dead child’. Once, I think, is probably enough. Mind you, the same goes for ‘The sun, a brilliant fireball, gloried in its dominance’. A brilliant fireball, eh? Hollinghurst and Amis will be kicking themselves when they read that, wishing they’d thought of it first. Still, we don’t read Herbert for the beauty of his prose, or his penetrating insights into the human condition. He wants to make our flesh creep. He wants our knotted and combined locks to part, and each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine. He succeeds. ‘Moon’ frightened the bejeesus out of me. What effect it would have on fretful porpentines does not bear thinking about.

I have always liked James Herbert and this is one of those books that reignites all the things you enjoyed and loved from previous books. FYI - I haven't read them in any kind of order. Jon Childes is a teacher with a past he would rather forget. It ruined his marriage, his every day life and almost cost him his sanity and freedom. After escaping to the island and starting a new it isn't long before history repeats itself and Jon finds himself in a horrible game of cat and mouse. This book is filled with lots of spooky goings on, horrific murders and desecrations. The story reads almost like a sequel as it refers back a few times to Childes past and what happened the last time, however after checking this is a stand alone book. The book goes along at a decent pace, keeping you hooked without giving away too much too quick. Sometimes a chapter starts with Childes and then one will visit 'the thing' and back to Childes however it flows fabulously and you will be caught up in the story in no time, especially if your a James Herbert fan. I really enjoyed it and wasn't left hanging as you are with a lot of these themed books so a 4/5 for me.