Charnel House

By Graham Masterton

Book Overview

People thought Seymour Wallis was crazy. But he insisted that his house was "breathing", and that he heard someone's, or something's, heartbeat pounding within the walls. The disbelievers... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0523403321
• ISBN13: 9780523403328
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Pinnacle Pb #40-332-1
• Length: 241 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.

Customer Reviews

MASTERTON'S FIRST GREAT BOOK

Charnel House was not Graham Masterton's first novel but it was his first BIG novel and the first that really garnered him some serious attention in the horror genre. The novel itself is about an investigation into a house that has a strange life of its own. The owner, Seymour Wallis thinks his house is breathing. A private Detective, John Hyatt, comes into investigate and finds something quite sinister. What appears at first to be a typical haunted house novel soon becomes something quite original, with a demon staging its own resurrection in a horrific way. To say much more would spoil too much of the plot. It's been well over 20 years since I first read this book but I still think it's one of his best.

Strong suspense collection

"Underbed". Martin dreams heroic thoughts. Tonight he envisions himself as a tunneler. Leaving the Land of Action, Martin meets a fisherman in the Land of Ideas. The angler asks Martin to rescue his daughter lost in the Land of the Underbed. Martin goes on the quest not knowing whether he will return to his bed alive."The Gray Madonna". When Karen and Dean learn that their unborn is severely handicapped, they have an abortion. They travel to Brugge, Belgium where someone murders Karen. Three years later, Dean returns seeking answers. When he learns first hand what happened to Karen makes no sense, but will he live to tell the authorities?"The Ballyhooly Boy". Café owner Jerry has no idea why Mrs. Devlin bequest her home to him. At the house, he sees a boy-ghost. He learns that a classmate at school killed his family and himself here. The boy also seeks revenge on those whom bullied him in school with Jerry being the latest target. Jerry knows he must stop the cycle or become a victim."Charnel House". The old man visits San Francisco Sanitation Department bureaucrat John insisting that his house breathes. Skeptically, John accompanied by Dan visit Seymour only to find his home breaths. Disaster strikes and something happens to Dan who breathes as if the house possesses him. Modern medicine fails leaving it up to John to find an alternative to save his friend.This collection consists of the title novella and three short stories all previously published, but each contain the trademark chilling suspense that the audience expects from grandmaster Graham Masterson.Harriet Klausner

Early Masterton

I'm a huge fan of Masterton's work and although CHARNEL HOUSE is one of his earlier novels I just recently got around to reading it. Masterton has a talent for taking real myths and bringing them into a modern day context. He does his homework on the subject and it makes his work credible and very eerie. CHARNEL HOUSE is about an American Indian demon that has orchestrated it's rebirth into our world through an old house in San Francisco. It becomes apparent to a small group of people that all of humanity is on the brink of extinction should the demon succeed. Things go from bad to worse as they rally themselves to try and stop it and there's some genuinely creepy elements to the story. I think so highly of Masterton it's hard for me to be critical, but it's fairly transparent that this is his early work. He was just starting to hit his stride with this novel (in my opinion) and it's a little rough in places and not as convincing (especially towards the end,) as most of his later work. It's still good stuff, however, and recommended to Masterton fans and horror fans.

charnel house

been a huge fan of masterton's for years-finally have his complete collection of horror and this was a great read(again).

very scary and highly researched about indian folklore

I read the book in 1980. The story deals with an ancient indian witch doctor who, by manipulation of innocent people, tries to come back to life.