 Graham Masterton returns with a gripping haunted These days the title ‘master of horror’ is banded around all to easily and social media elevates authors who have written a few decent books to a status they have yet to earn. This is not the case with Graham Masterton whose contribution to the horror genre is staggering and claims the ‘master of horror’ moniker with novels to spare. This fact was rubber stamped in 2019 when Graham was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the HWA at StokerCon 2019. This was both well-deserved and long overdue as there are many life-long horror fanatics who would sit Masterton on the same top table as the giants of King, McCammon and Barker. Since the 1970s Masterton has been incredibly prolific, and is equally good writing crime fiction, but sadly, the high quality of his recent fiction is often overlooked and the stuff he wrote years ago regularly picks up more press and fan coverage. This is a great shame, as his previous horror novel Ghost Virus (which I gave the maximum 5/5 gingernuts) was utterly bonkers and streets ahead of the stuff the ‘cool kids’ of the genre many years his junior, who inhabit the horror social media world, have been churning out. His latest outing The House of a Hundred Whispers continues this fine recent form and if you have read about Masterton before, but never knew where to start, this is as good a place to begin your journey as any. These days haunted house stories are a dime-a-dozen, but in the hands of Masterton you can always expect something slightly different, with an additional twist which gives the book a level of uniqueness. I loved this book, starting it on a Friday evening and finishing it on Sunday morning. Page-turners do not come much better. In many ways the setting is a classic location for a haunted house novel; All Hallows Hall is a rundown Tudor mansion set on a rural part of windswept Dartmoor and its owner, the former Governor of Dartmoor Prison is murdered in the opening chapter. The story then jumps forward to the reading of the will which throws a few unexpected curveballs at the three siblings who are expecting to split the near two million the house will generate when sold. The three were on very poor terms with their father at the time of his death and we find out more about him as the story develops. The very compact and skilfully told tale is set over a few brief days after the siblings and their partners arrive for the reading of the will, at the same time they know the murder of their father remains unsolved. None of the three have fond memories of living in the house, with one of the brothers having unpleasant flashbacks to his childhood and an obsession that another boy, very like him, was living under his bed. All Hallows Hall is set close to the real-life village of Sampford Spiney, which helps give the novel an excellent sense of time and place, using local dialect and integrating very clever examples of local folklore and witchcraft. The whole pictured painted by Graham Masterton was incredibly convincing and skilfully crafted. Near the start of the novel, during the reading of the will, the five-year-old child Timmy disappears whilst out playing. His parents, Rob and Vicky, are besides themselves with worry but the search parties are unable to locate the boy. Strangely, even the search dogs will not go near the house and the tracking experts are unable to pick up any trace of him. Where did Timmy go? Is he dead? Or is he lost somewhere within the house? What follows, at first glance, appears to be a deceptively simply mystery story, which slowly turns supernatural, and ultimately morphs into a fiendishly well plotted page-turner. For the sake of spoilers, I do not want to dwell on the plot any longer but will give you an indication of what types of delights and scares lie ahead. First up, The House of a Hundred Whispers has a sly sense of humour, there is a superb exorcism scene where the priest in question claims that he has been involved in the famous Exorcist film he would have “exorcised that petty demon in minutes”. That is mighty big talk and things do not exactly go to plan! There is also a ghost which is repeatedly described as a Charles Bronson lookalike. That also made me chuckle, as I do not think old ‘Stone Face’ appeared in many horror films! In the early stages of the novel I felt the characters might have been one of the weak links; they shouted a lot, were not particularly likeable, and were very sluggish in appreciating the seriousness of the situation in the disappearance of the boy. However, Rob grew on me considerably as the story gets darker, as did his brother Martin, who finds himself in an even stickier situation. The novel also has an outstanding and very convincing connection with history which might have you checking Wikipedia to see what is based on fact and what is not. You will be quickly sucked into the world of architect Nicholas Owen, hidden priest holes and witching rooms which are crucial to the plot. The supernatural connects to the folklore of the Dartmoor area was also fascinating, with ‘Gleaners’, ‘Charmers’ and ‘Old Dewar’ all added to the entertaining spin. I am not going to say too much about the ghosts, other than the fact that they are outstanding and play an increasingly significant part in proceedings as the novel develops with the story also being told from their point of view. Also, have you ever given a thought to whether ghosts breathe? A fascinating thought, which this book considers, breathing your last breath repeatedly for eternity. The House of a Hundred Whispers is a suspenseful ghost story rather than a violent one and compared to the previous Ghost Virus it is rather tame on the gore stakes. This is no criticism though, as it does feature a couple of standout scenes of violence, including a kill scene I do not think I have ever seen before. A guy’s bones are pulled through a wall, but his flesh and entrails are left behind as a puddle of mush on the carpet. Not something you read every day! This was an outstanding horror novel which I thoroughly enjoyed. Masterton takes the skeleton of what you might expect to find in a genre based haunted house novel but adds several extra dimensions and quirks. This was an expertly plotted horror and on the outset the reader would never imagine how the murder of the prison governor ties into the wider plot. Great stuff. 5/5 Tony Jones  On a windswept moor, an old house guards its secrets... The new standalone horror novel from 'a true master of horror.' All Hallows Hall is a rambling Tudor mansion on the edge of the bleak and misty Dartmoor. It is not a place many would choose to live. Yet the former Governer of Dartmoor Prison did just that. Now he's dead, and his children – long estranged – are set to inherit his estate. But when the dead man's family come to stay, the atmosphere of the moors seems to drift into every room. Floorboards creak, secret passageways echo, and wind whistles in the house's famous priest hole. And then, on the same morning the family decide to leave All Hallows Hall and never come back, their young son Timmy disappears – from inside the house. Does evil linger in the walls? Or is evil only ever found inside the minds of men? Praise for Graham Masterton: 'A true master of horror' James Herbert 'One of the most original and frightening storytellers of our time' Peter James 'A natural storyteller with a unique gift for turning the mundane into the terrifyingly real' New York Journal of Books 'This is a first-class thriller with some juicy horror touches. Mystery readers who don't know the Maguire novels should change that right now' Booklist 'One of Britain's finest horror writers' Daily Mail About the Author Graham Masterton is mainly recognized for his horror novels but he has also been a prolific writer of thrillers, disaster novels and historical epics, as well as one of the world’s most influential series of sex instruction books. He became a newspaper reporter at the age of 17 and was appointed editor of Penthouse magazine at only 24. His first horror novel The Manitou was filmed with Tony Curtis playing the lead, and three of his short horror stories were filmed by Tony Scott for The Hunger TV series. Ten years ago Graham turned his hand to crime novels and White Bones, set in Ireland, was a Kindle phenomenon, selling over 100,000 copies in a month. This has been followed by ten more bestselling crime novels featuring Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire, the latest of which is The Last Drop of Blood. In 2019 Graham was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association. The Prix Graham Masterton for the best horror fiction in French has been awarded annually for the past ten years, and four years ago he established an annual award for short stories written by inmates in Polish prisons, Nagroda Grahama Mastertona “W Więzieniu Pisane.” He is currently working on new horror and crime novels. Buy links: Amazon: https://amzn.to/2DejwGk iBooks: https://apple.co/2P3pcFX Kobo: https://bit.ly/338461g Google Play: https://bit.ly/332yzxP Follow Graham Masterton: Twitter: @GrahamMasterton Wesbite: www.grahammasterton.co.uk. Follow Head of Zeus: Twitter: @HoZ_Books Facebook: @headofzeus Instagram: @headofzeus Website: www.headofzeus.com    the heart and soul of horror fiction review websitesComments are closed.
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