• The Ghosts of Sleath

  • David Ash Series, Book 2
  • By: James Herbert
  • Narrated by: Steven Pacey
  • Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (83 ratings)

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The Ghosts of Sleath  By  cover art

The Ghosts of Sleath

By: James Herbert
Narrated by: Steven Pacey
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Editorial reviews

British horror maven James Herbert reprises his psychic investigator David Ash, a man continually haunted by the ghosts of his past - literally. Ash senses evil in the rural English hamlet of Sleath, and before long he joins the local villagers as a plaything in the hands of sinister and mysterious specters. In the lofty strains of performer Steven Pacey (Blake’s 7, M.I.T.: Murder Investigation Team), The Ghosts of Sleath is accorded a voice that is pastoral, brimming with the stuffy and proud traditions of provincial England, but at the same time eerie, menacing and chillingly convincing in its portrayal of a town burdened by the centuries-old ghosts of its gruesome past.

Publisher's summary

Menace awaits. Sleath. Quiet, peaceful. A small village hidden away in the Chiltern Hills, almost forgotten by the modern world. Nothing much seems to happen here; little disturbs the centuries-old tranquillity. Until the ghosts begin to appear and frighteningly bizarre events start to occur.

Psychic investigator David Ash, a man burdened by the dark secret of his own past, is sent to Sleath to investigate the phenomena and his discoveries there drive him to the very edge of his own sanity. The incidents grow worse until, in the final night of horror, awesome and malign forces are unleashed in a supernatural storm that threatens to consume the village itself. For Sleath is not what it seems. And the dead have returned for a reason.

James Herbert was one of Britain’s greatest popular novelists and our #1 best-selling writer of chiller fiction. Widely imitated and hugely influential, he wrote 23 novels which have collectively sold over 54 million copies worldwide and been translated into 34 languages. Born in London in the forties, James Herbert was art director of an advertising agency before turning to writing fiction in 1975.

His first novel, The Rats, was an instant bestseller and is now recognised as a classic of popular contemporary fiction. Herbert went on to publish a new top ten best-seller every year until 1988. He wrote six more bestselling novels in the 1990s and three more since: Once, Nobody True and The Secret of Crickley Hall. Herbert died in March 2013 at the age of 69.

©1994 James Herbert (P)2013 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

"Herbert was by no means literary, but his work had a raw urgency. His best novels, The Rats and The Fog, had the effect of Mike Tyson in his championship days: no finesse, all crude power. Those books were best sellers because many readers (including me) were too horrified to put them down." (Stephen King)
"There are few things I would like to do less than lie under a cloudy night sky while someone read aloud the more vivid passages of Moon. In the thriller genre, do recommendations come any higher?" (Andrew Postman, The New York Times Book Review)
"Herbert goes out in a blaze of glory." ( Daily Mail)

What listeners say about The Ghosts of Sleath

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Good book not my style

Great performance
I just struggled with the violence
I guess I want softer mysteries
Well done though

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2 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Familiar Folk Horror meets Ghost Story

You know how the tune goes. Isolated, picturesque village, where people don't take very kindly to outsiders, hiding an evil secret.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it did deliver a lot of quality scares. On the other, I felt it lacked imagination in its premise and quite often crossed the line of good taste. Maybe for some people it works, but in addition to the heavy gore, expect graphic depictions of sexual violence, including child molestation.

I did like the pacing and the steady build-up of horrors, but the final explanation for the source of the haunting and the role of some characters in it felt a little too lowest-common-demoninator by horror standards.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Slow Starter

The beginning is so slow I almost have up on the book, but I'm glad I didn't. A found this to be a fascinatingly, gruesome novel and will be reading and listening more of this author.

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