Ash

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Some of the creature descriptions veer too far into silliness, undermining any threat or fear they might hold. With a prologue detailing the last thoughts of Princess Diana as she lies dying in the wreck of her broken Mercedes, Ash initially seems like it will be Herbert at his most outrageous. Herbert had previously tackled the theme of reincarnation in his fourth novel, Fluke, the fantasy story of a dog who somehow remembers his previous life as a human being.

Yes, several of James Herbert's novels, including the 'Rats' series, have seen serializations and translations in various languages. While on assignment, hiding in a mausoleum and hoping to get a gossip-worthy shot at a celebrity's funeral, he takes a picture of something that isn't supposed to exist.It takes place at Comraich, a Scottish castle which has been converted into an exclusive, secret hideaway for people who, for whatever reason, need to disappear from the world. This is a proper story-telling narrative, with the author explaining things for us and injecting some brilliant humour in the process. One of the characters in this novel is named after a real person, who won the honour by having the winning bid in the 2004 BBC Radio 2 Children in Need Auction.

This novel opens with the dying thoughts of Princess Diana, which is considerate in a way, as it sets the bar for tastelessness good and early.It is a book filled with the usual Herbert charm… and yet somehow it falls short therefore preventing it from earning a spot in my top three Herbert books.

The storyline was interesting enough but it lapsed into farce now and then, and even for a book of this genre, fantasy/horror, it seemed far too over the top. It was a bit of a rollercoaster, to be honest, parts were a four star and I 'got into' it, and others were a two star, especially the last eighty or so pages, the pages you expect to be the most enthralling, and I couldn't wait for it to end.If you don’t want to read a book which uses real-life tragedies as material for a lurid horror-thriller, Ash is not for you.

Oh and James Herbert really wants you to know like Mickey Rourke, back when he didn't have his face smashed in by boxers and the terribly botched plastic surgery after.Still, there are some really interesting monsters here and the writing is truly brilliant, so others are likely to be more impressed than me. As the inhabitants of Comraich are revealed – war criminals, murderers, child molesters, all of whom have escaped justice simply by being unfeasibly rich – the reader starts to anticipate the inevitable descent into chaos when the spirits are unleashed.