The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert

This is a hefty tome at 600 plus pages and towards the end I felt it had gone on a tad too long.

I've read a few of Herbert's books and thought some of them very poor (The Survivor was one of the worst ghost stories I've ever read) but this one is in an altogether different class. The characters are interesting, well filled out and likable. You care about them. Presuming, like me, you are a believer in the supernatural, then you will enjoy and believe in the ghostly and spooky events that go on through out the book. The tension and trepidation makes the book a page turner, you want to know what happens next.

If only the author could resist turning the ending into a theatrical, over the top spook fest which stretches even the belief of a hardened lover of all things paranormal like myself. For me, the ending was the weakest part of the book. If he had restrained his imagination, given us something eerily and subtly terrifying, I might even have given the book ten out of ten.