The Secret of Crickley Hall

Written by James Herbert

Narrated by Steven Pacey

The Caleighs have had a terrible year... They need time and space, while they await the news they dread. Gabe has brought his wife, Eve, and daughters, Loren and Cally, down to Devon, to the peaceful seaside village of Hollow Bay. He can work and Eve and the kids can have some peace and quiet and perhaps they can try, as a family, to come to terms with what’s happened to them...

Crickley Hall is an unusually large house on the outskirts of the village at the bottom of Devil's Cleave, a massive tree-lined gorge - the stuff of local legend. A river flows past the front garden. It's perfect for them... if it a bit gloomy. And Chester, their dog, seems really spooked at being away from home. And old houses do make sounds. And it's constantly cold. And even though they shut the cellar door every night, it’s always open again in morning…

The Secret of Crickley Hall is James Herbert’s finest novel to date. It explores the darker, more obtuse territories of evil and the supernatural. With brooding menace and rising tension, he masterfully and relentlessly draws the listener through to the ultimate revelation – one that will stay to chill the mind long after the book has been laid aside.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Apr 6, 2007
• ISBN: 9780230700802

James Herbert

James Herbert was not only Britain’s number one bestselling writer of chiller fiction, a position he held ever since publication of his first novel, but was also one of our greatest popular novelists. Widely imitated and hugely influential, his twenty-three novels have sold more than fifty-four million copies worldwide, and have been translated into over thirty languages, including Russian and Chinese. In 2010, he was made the Grand Master of Horror by the World Horror Convention and was also awarded an OBE by the Queen for services to literature. His final novel was Ash. James Herbert died in March 2013.

Reviews for The Secret of Crickley Hall

[triduana-794064 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book, although I made the mistake of reading it too soon after I'd seen the TV adaptation. I probably need to read this one again at some point.

[equestrienne · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Pet Lovers Seal of Approval!

A surprisingly fast read considering the lengthy page count. A good ghost story, even though there were few surprises; but hey, us ghost story fans can only expect so much innovation......it is the style that is important.

This book was a bit of a struggle for those of us who have difficulty with the descriptions of the scenes of abuse. It makes me think that Herbert had a thought pop into his head one day......"hey, what if the Chronicles of Narnia went horribly wrong? What if children were evacuated from London during the second world war and sent to a house in the country that DIDN'T have a magic wardrobe?" I found a few other bits & pieces that were borrowed from other novels of the paranormal (The Shining, The Turn of the Screw, etc).

Not the best ghost/haunting story, but solid and enjoyable and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys this type of book.

[adonisguilfoyle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have been meaning to read a James Herbert novel for years, but unfortunately for me, I picked a duff 'un. Not bad enough to abandon, even clocking in at over 600 pages, but still more of an endurance test than a ghost story. The plot was intriguing enough, if decidedly lacking in originality and belaboured with every device known to horror writers, but the writing was atrocious! Not only is James Herbert of the 'Tell Don't Show' school of fiction, he's the patron saint. There was so much unnecessary detail in this book - even minor characters sound like police e-fits, all medium builds with low foreheads and clothing itemised by brand - that a decent editor would have been able to chop this book in half with ease. (And don't forget the humble bracket for wedging in additional pointless facts!)I vaguely remember this being made into a BBC miniseries with the ubiquitous Suranne Jones a few years ago, which would probably have been a quicker introduction to Herbert than reading this brick of a book. The story is the same - after the loss of their young son, the Caleigh family move from London to the Devon coast while husband Gabe (he's American! and an engineer!) is working on a sea turbine project (which you'll learn all about, even though his work isn't relevant!) Unfortunately, they make the mistake of renting Crickley Hall, which is haunted to the hilt, all creaking doors and banging in the night, not to mention mysterious wet patches drifting up from the cellar. The dog runs away after a couple of days, but nope, Gabe doesn't believe in ghosts, so they'll just have to hack it. Through lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnng scenes of exposition ('Are you growing tired of my reminiscences, Eve?'), naturally, we learn that a group of orphaned children were evacuated to the house in the 40s, to be cared for by a religious crackpot called Augustus Theophilus Cribben (yep, he was always going to turn out well) and his equally unstable sister Magda. Bad things happened, in graphic detail, and now the house is filled with the tormented spirits of the children and bonkers Augie himself. A medium (female, sympathetic) and a paranormal investigator (male, dodgy) also join in the exposition, so that the final two hundred pages drag on for HOURS. Not even a fight in the cellar, with the villain turning into Rasputin and refusing to die, until the decomposing corpse of his first victim pushes him down a well, and then old Augustus returning for an encore, could save the story for me by that point.I have read that James Herbert's other books are better, and hopefully shorter, so I won't give up on him just yet, but that was not a promising start! (Helpful hint: watch the TV series instead. Or the Poltergeist trilogy, which is the same sort of thing.)

[bunnyhero-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

bloated, overlong, and inelegantly written. i'd never read any James Herbert before and after this i doubt i'll read any others. i am curious to know if the tv series was any better.

[aadyer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A little bit like a ITV TV drama this has some appealing features, which draws one in. The characterisations and setting appear to be involving but all too soon this feels like your standard haunted house story. There are lots of cliched and dull occurrences which make one feel as though you're watching a bad ITV TV movie. Some intriguing plot twists, but too long, too unoriginal and too predictable. All of that said, this is a very easy, very "moreish" read.

[dagon12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I consider Herbert's book THE SECRET OF CRICKLEY HALL to be a solidly entertaining book. It follows the typical pattern for a haunted house story: scary looking house abandoned years in the past due to a tragic event, new family moves in, spooky things happen, events are ignored, big spooky things happen and everything comes to a conclusion. It's a comfortable pattern and Herbert follows it.In this case, it is the Caleigh family that moves to the new location for the husband's job and to escape the dread due to their son being missing for almost a year. The family experiences weird happenings which are generally ignored or rationalized away by the father until they can no longer be ignored.Unfortunately while the haunted house story is a comfortable pattern, it is also a familiar one. It means that the author has to go beyond the normal and do something to pull the reader's in further. It could be character depth to make everyone real or something to break the normal pattern, but something is needed. While Herbert is more than talented enough to provide that something, he does not in this case. Instead we're left with a solid story that is entertaining but which does not grasp us as much as it should. The spooky isn't quite spooky enough. We don't quite care enough for the characters. And the one surprise that does occur was not enough. I would still recommend the novel but I would also be sure to reduce your expectations so that you aren't disappointed.

[bookwormteri · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A family moves into Crickley Hall to have some healing from their son's disappearance almost a year ago. Then the sounds and hauntings and dreams begin. What really happened to the orphans that lived in the house during WWII?Sound ghost story. At times a little wordy, but solid. Who doesn't love a good ghost story set in a mansion in the dreary English countryside. The mom in the book did annoy me a bit though. I know she went through this tragedy, but jesus woman...see a therapist or something. You still have a family that needs you.

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this novel by the British master horror writer after recently watching the 2012 TV adaptation. I thought that was a very good piece of drama, and the book is also very good, but it is rather too long and drawn out at some 630 pages - I think it could easily have been a couple of hundred pages shorter. The author is as effective as ever at building up a thick atmosphere of impending evil and fear, though the cruel mistreatment and killing of the children, much more vivid and horrific than in the TV adaptation, makes this a rather depressing and disturbing read, especially in the later chapters. The scenes set in 1943, achieved through parallel story lines on TV, are here handled somewhat less effectively through modern characters' own thoughts and lengthy recollections, which can sometimes come across as slightly artificial. So a good and gripping read, but perhaps not quite as effective as it might have been.

[frenzie_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book taps into the cultural framework of haunted house stories. You know just about all that's going to happen from the very beginning, and the only remaining question is how it's executed. The answer is that the book is entertaining enough, occasionally gross, but overall it went on for too long and was too repetitive — especially given how obvious everything was from the get-go.

[ken1952 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Creepy ghostfest that went on for a bit too long (600+ pages) but kept me turning pages well into the wee hours of the morning. Grim and violent at times, Herbert knows how to keep his story pulsing with terror. And like any family in a haunted house worth their salt, they don't know enough to RUN FOR THEIR LIVES!

[chromiumdomium · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Very predictable and lifeless, probably the worst James Herbert book I've ever read.

[oldstick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My first James Herbert novel and although a haunted house in Cornwall is rather a cliche there has been so much rain in the UK recently that the flood setting really seemed believable. I did find one character, the psychic, rather irritating but I quite liked the way we were fed snippets of the past in between the action. He makes a change from Stephen King.

[imyknott · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant - I have not read yet a bad James Herbert Novel and I just could not put this down.

[casualfriday_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

What's wrong with Crickley Hall? The cellar door won't stay shut. There are strange noises coming from the closet. The dog hates the place. Be very afraid, run away now - from this novel.Oy, what a stinker. It has the bones of a good story - plotty enough that I had to severely edit the synopsis to be accepted by my book database - but the story is badly told and very badly edited. There is no real character development, although there are character back stories that take up valuable pages and are left dangling. In an incredibly irritating dialog tic, the male lead, an American, speaks with "gonnas" and other colloquialisms and sounds like an idiot, not like an American. Rather than build the story organically, the author gives up pieces of information along the way through awkward exposition in the mouths of stock characters. Worst sin of all: not scary. The evil ghost is just laughable. Parts are base and lurid and left me feeling icky, but I was never once scared.

[cathymoore_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book marked a return for me to James Herbert after I scared myself witless reading Rats a number of years ago. I was ready to be terrified again. Alas, it was not to be. While Crickley Hall is a good story with some interesting if somewhat stereotyped characters, it doesn't have that really creepy, terrifying capability that I feel some of his previous works have had. It kept me interested and I rattled through it in a couple of days, testament to the fact that it wasn't that scary (I find myself putting scary books to one side for days at a time while I pluck up the courage to read on!) If you are looking for a good story of a haunted house then you've come to the right place, however it's not the sort of book you need to avoid reading at bedtime. Anyone who gets nightmares from this one needs to man up a bit!!

[runner56_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have been a long time fan of Mr Herbert and fondly remember reading such delicacies as The Rats, Lair and Haunted to name but a few. These books however were written in the distant past and in recent times the author just has not delivered....until now. The Secret of Crickley Hall sees James Herbert back to his best. This book reminds me somewhat of the style of Hauanted but it is fresh absorbing and most important for a horror book...frightening! Read and enjoy...but leave the light on!!

[elphaba71 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the first James Herbert book I have read, it will not be the last! This is a real chilling, gothic horror story. Set in Devon, Crickley Hall is home to a tragic past that still haunts the house & the new tennants. There is a good bit of sceen setting in the first 100 pages or so, the story starts off quite slow meadnering it's way to a very fast paced chilling end.

[sonicquack · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Secret of Crickley Hall is bound to be enjoyed by any supernatural fan. It's a haunted house story; a house with a terrible past; a house with echoes of sins committed within it's walls. You'd not be mistaken to note that this is old ground, covered many times before, several times by Herbert himself. What makes Crickley Hall different is it's competence. Although nothing original, Herbert has transformed a simple haunting tale in to an epic - one leaf short of 600 pages. The premise of a family renting the old Hall to escape a personal tragedy is well crafted and almost as soon as they arrive the supernatural events kick in. Herbert knows this genre and adeptly spins enough curveballs to keep you enthused. New and essential characters continue to arrive to prevent the story from becoming stale, right up until the end. Although the end could be predicted (since all ghost stories benefit from some closure if the purpose of a haunting is to be explained) the path winds its way through all the familiar territory, although it uses side alleys and back roads to get there. So although this marathon ghost story offers little in originality it's a good read. In fact it uses almost every cliche available unashamedly, and perhaps because of this it is one of the most assured ghost stories out there.

[alatham_13 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Struggling to finish it.I'm quite disappointed with this latest James Herbert. I've read a number of his later novels, including "The Ghosts of Sleath", "Others" and "Nobody True" and thoroughly enjoyed all of them. However I find this latest 'tome' repetitive, lacking any deep plot or characterisation and far, far too long to cope with the meagre plot. If you compare the excellently constructed protagonist in "Others" with any of the main characters in "The Secret of Crickley Hall" then you will notice a complete disassociation with the reader. In the former the reader is empathetically taken on an emotional journey with Nicholas Dismas, however in "The Secret of Crickley Hall", even though the characters face deep physical and emotional struggles, the unnecessarily repeating and drawing out of the 'plot' turns a potential page turner into a page closer!The only "twist" I've come across so far is that one of the children and the head mistress from the war are still alive. But in all honesty, even this is a tediously protracted and utterly predictable.There are some scenes around the middle of the book which build in tension and do grasp the readers attention however they procrastinate an exciting conclusion but fail to deliver, falling into a void of utter pointlessness.I've been about 60 pages from the end of it for about a week with another shiny new book sitting eagerly on my bookshelf waiting to be read. Only sheer stubbornness is forcing me to finish it, I just hope the end will surprise me, but I doubt it.

[localpeanut · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Swish-Thwack and Puddles from HellOut in Hollow Bay, a gloomy house (in fact, the entire neighborhood is pretty grim) is rented by a family who have recently suffered the tragedy of a missing son. But there's something wrong with this rental property. The dog hates the place. A cellar door won't stay shut. The tree swing has ideas of its own. Closets make an unearthly racket. Teeny disembodied footsteps are heard. And a naked man walks down the stairs with a wooden switch. Switch-thwack. I'm a big fan of James Herbert and this is a departure from his usual fare. Its an old-fashioned (in a good way) ghost story. Complete with a 70-year-old caretaker who supplies the back story of this former "orphanage," the psychic who's afraid of readings, a spook hunter, and spectacularly stormy weather (Herbert's setup of atmos can't be beat). There's some surprising twists and tragic turns (especially where the orphans and the lost son is concerned.) And unusual too, is the treatment of hauntings which are not grounded. (Ghosts following people . . . away from the place of the original haunting). I won't reveal anymore other than I gave it a 4 because the father, Gabe, took more than half the book to believe his house was haunted!! Engineers, what to do??? This is the perfect book to curl up in an armchair with your sharp-eyed dog in your lap. And better yet, if the branch of that birch or oak is banging on the glass panes of your window and and the rain and wind is beginning to sound like soft whispers . . . eek