James Herbert, Sepulchre Review

Good Points
A great offering from one of the greatest horror writers of this time.

Bad Points
Unfortunately the characterisation is rather poor.

General Comments
James Herbert, Sepulchre - Synopsis:

"Halloran is a member of a personal security company, Achilles Shield. He is seconded to a company called Magma to protect an enigmatic employee Kline. This company searches for new deposits of oil worldwide to utilise for profit. Cora is female secretary to Kline and knows his idiosyncrasies and secrets. Halloran is told that Kline has been threatened because he has the psychic ability find the oil as well as other abilities. Halloran is sceptical but through his affection for Cora, finds out a lot more than was in his original brief and that Kline's ability comes from an evil source".



First published back in 1987, Herbert has managed to produce another outstanding novel here, with a dark tale of corruption and despair. Admittedly, the characterisation isn't the greatest aspect of the novel, as you never really get to feel anything for any of the principal characters, but this does not subtract from the novel as much as one would think. The book races by with a jam-packed plot that will truly leave you not wanting to put the book down.



The novel runs on for 416 pages, but there was an extra chapter that was removed from the novel by Herbert himself, which you can read within Herbert's biography - Devil In The Dark. This is an intersting addition to the novel which expands on the relationship between Liam and Cora (two major characters), but was removed because Herbert thought it slowed the pace of novel down too much.



I'd definitely recommend this book to any fan of the horror genre. I'd say it is definitely one of Herbert's better novels. Still it's not a patch on The Rats, The Fog, The Survivor or '48. Well worth a read though! Enjoy!