James Herbert, The Jonah

First published back in 1981, ' The Jonah 'was Herbert ' s eighth novel to be published. Moving slightly away from his previous splatterpunk and down right gritty horror subject matters, this well written and intriguing tale delivers a well balanced mixture between a thriller and a horror.

Set in a quiet coastal town, Detective Jim Kelso (a typical Herbert style anti-hero) is placed on an assignment to discover the reason behind how a good honest local family came into contact with the drug LSD, that almost saw the death of them during some extreme and vivid hallucinations. The plot thickens as Kelso discovers that there ' s a lot more than just honest fishing work going on in this quiet location. As Kelso gets closer to the truth, a much more disturbing turn of events reveals itself.

' The Jonah 'is a well paced novel that draws the reader into the developing storyline with the mysterious events that are occurring. Kelso is written as a very human and easy to identify with character. The interlacing subplots that run parallel to the main thread of the storyline add a good depth to the novel as a whole, whilst fleshing out the characters and their respective pasts.

Recurring flashbacks that haunt Kelso throughout the novel add an intriguing aspect to the tale, with a big question mark constantly hanging over the character ' s unknown background. Obviously, Herbert draws this out until the end, building up the suspense throughout the novel.

Once the novel has set itself in motion, the action comes thick and fast, with regular cliff hangers ending each chapter making the book difficult to put down. The grand finale is quite surprising, with a rather obvious twist that is still over shadowed by the sheer explosion of events and the unveiling of the hideous truth that has been a constant undercurrent during the tale. The novel contains the usual input of sex and edge of the seat violence. The ' who ' s behind it ' side of things is done well, keeping the reader guessing on each page for the first half of the book.

All in all, ' The Jonah 'is another classic piece of dark fiction from this very well respected horror writer. The novel runs for a total of 253 pages.