It begins when Alice, a deaf-mute, sees a vision of a lady who claims to be the Immaculate Conception. When you consider the rise of secularism in the West, it’s quite ahead of its time. Tapping into his Roman Catholic heritage, Shrine is a story – a warning – about religious hysteria. Naturally I didn’t find it quite as scary second time around (well, I know what happens), but it’s still a cracking tale and a good place to start if you’re looking to sample Herbert’s dark wares. So dipping into it again was the proverbial trip down Memory Lane. Shrine is a personal favourite from my youth. I don’t think he’s as good a writer, technically, as King. Small and wiry, and always attired in black, he has a physicality and sartorial sensibility that suits his profession there’s an air of occult professor about him. His novels have sold millions across the world and have been translated into 33 languages. He’s a man who almost single-handedly dragged the genre screaming and kicking back into the mainstream from the dark cupboard under the publishing stairs where it had been hiding – in the UK at least. James Herbert O.B.E (see, even Her Majesty likes horror) is the UK’s Stephen King.
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