Customer Reviews
Took a while to get into, but glad I persisted - By: Ms. Priya Agheda, 18 Aug 2008 
It took me a good few chapters to get into this one which is unusual for a James Herbert Novel as I am usuallly hooked straightaway. But once it had got my attention I could barely put it down. It was excited & scary & Joe Creed is portrayed as a rogue that you cant help but like. The ending was exciting & scary although it did leave me with a few unanswered questions.
This is ok, but not great. - By: J. D. Aspinall, 24 Mar 2007 
I felt reading this that I could see the joins in the plot - rather like a Dan Brown novel - you can see the thought process governing the book's structure, & that for me was a let down.
The lead character is great, though. A slimy, smarmy photographer - with, of course, a bad boy's charm - plying his trade in London Town.
The main problem with the book is that it doesn't seem to know what it is exactly. Is it a Horror novel? A thriller? Or maybe even a Comedy? All the elements are there for it to have been anyone of those.
For example: The lead character's son gets kidnapped, then the kid's mother comes to pick him up, so his dad - Joe Creed, the novel's main man - has to come up with an excuse for the kid not being there, right? So he tells his estranged wife that their son has joined the scouts & gone off to camp - this he has to make up on the spot, & gets into a flap when the ex-wife says she'll go & pick him up. This whole scene seems to have been added purely for laughs, but it hardly seemed appropriate under the circumstances, & therefore seemed forced & contrived.
Creed - the character - is well written, & we know just exactly what he's like, but in my little opinion, Herbert makes a huge mistake. Creed is a smoker, & Herbert decides that he will smoke Roll-ups, using Brown licorice fag papers. Sorry - NO WAY! I thought that was wrong from the first time we see Creed doing it, & couldn't work out what was going on. Joe Creed should be smoking Marlboros, & sparking them up with a tatty Zippo - no question.
I think it's a testament to how convincing the character is that this minor detail bothered me so much.
All in alll, the book's okay, not my favourite Herbert novel, but the first I have bothered to review.
I think Haunted is the best of his that I've read, by the way.
Demons today are a shoddy lot... - By: M. Somers, 12 Jan 2006 Soon after beginning this book, I decided I needed to stop reading it. Not because it was a bad story, nor because I was scared, but because I couldn't put up with UK bestseller James Herbert's style of writing. The way he fills up the pages with brackets & odd personal comments reallly put me off, but thankfully the main character & the storyline managed to hold onto me.
The titular character Joe Creed is a London-based paparazzi photographer about to make the worst mistake of his life, in photographing a strange man who appears in the aftermath of a funeral. Creed soon finds himself trying to unravel a string of occurrences that become more twisted & more unfathomable each step of the way.
Creed isn't a unique character, but he is a well-developed one. He is very believable as a brash paparazzo, & is generallly very likeable. Herbert definitely knew exactly who he was dealing with here.
The story aswell, while expectedly trashy horror affair, is a lot of fun, genuinely chilling, & the emphasis on the media & Creed's occupation give it a certain edge.
Herbert's writing does seem to settle down after a few chapters, but my major qualms lie in the feeling that this novel, despite it's maturity, still feels like a Point Horror book at times. The chapters ending on 'cliffhangers' are the worst offenders.
You know, where the shadowy figure enters through the doorway, but it turns out to be a cat? I caught onto those when R.L Stine used them at the end of every single chapter in every single Goosebumps book.
But you know, I can still see the humour in this, & I have a reallly hard time saying that this sort of thing actuallly detracted from my enjoyment of the book.
A decent read, sure to entertain, but nothing more.
Ghoulish fun - By: dogbarkssome, 12 Dec 2004 
James Herbert's 15th novel continues the high standard of Haunted, albeit in a completely different style. The cover copy probably overstates the case - "You'll Be Afraid to Laugh" runs the tagline - as Creed is by no means an outright comedy, but it does have it's rotting tongue in cheek on more than one occasion. This isn't quite the knowing post-modernism of Wes Craven's Scream, but it certainly comes close on occasion. What makes the book a success is that these flashes of blackest humour derive from the voice of the main character - Joe Creed - a cynical member of the despised tabloid paparazzi, a slob whose only real interest is himself, & with no belief in anything supernatural. Just watching Creed struggle through his career is entertaining enough, & the fact that he isn't some flawless hero makes his reactions to the supernatural more believable. Add in an unwanted child dumped on him by his estranged wife & his delicate balancing of doing the right thing & earning money makes for some great drama. While there are moments of black comedy however, Creed for the most part works as a successful horror novel, in fact this novel contains some of Herbert's most chilling material, with Creed being harassed by a bizarre nocturnal visitor & doubting his own sanity. If there is a criticism here then the ending feels a little rushed, but with it's winning combination of chills, black humour, & an intriguing lead character Creed is never less than entertaining reading, & one of Herbert's best books.
The main character's surname as book title...again??? - By: Helen Simpson, 19 Mar 2004 However...an interesting & original idea, written in typical Herbert style. I enjoyed reading it but once I got to a certain point in the book, I sensed deja vu. There was definately a similarity with one of his other books, which I won't name so I don't give away any endings. However still a stimulating read :)
