Others

A chilling tale of a gruesome secret from the world-renowned author of Portent "My redemption began in Hell..." So begins James Herbert's controversial and stunning new chiller. Nicholas Dismas is a private investigator, but like no other that has gone before him. He carries a secret about himself to which not even he has the answer. He is hired to find a missing baby, one that was taken away at birth. His investigation takes him to a mysteriously located place called Perfect Rest. It is supposed to be a nursing home for the elderly, but there is a lot more to this place than meets the eye. Here Dismas will discover the dark secret of the Others. And in an astonishing and spectacular finale he will resolve the enigma of his own existence. As chilling, as memorable, and as timely as only James Herbert can be, Others will join the classics for which he is remembered with fear.

Amazon.com Review

Author of such classic chilling tales as The Fog and The Rats, Britain's foremost horror master James Herbert now cleverly transcends the boundaries of detective fiction and the supernatural for Others, a book that begins in the bowels of Hell. In this fiery underworld we meet a former Hollywood movie star, thrust there for a lifetime of depravity. But now this damned soul is given one more shot at redemption, a chance to live again as a human. Begging for a new judgment, he is sent back to earth, without memory of his past life or death. However, his new existence will be a wretched one, living in the body of Nicholas Dismas, a brilliant and tender-hearted private investigator sadly afflicted with horrendous physical deformities. Shunned by strangers, Nicholas struggles not only with his malformed body, but also with a troubling sense of self. Staring in the mirror, other eyes stare back, "too blurred for recognition. That ill-defined but handsome countenance had hinted at something too evasive to remember properly, too vague to focus upon, yet still filled me with a strange, elusive regret." It isn't until Dismas takes on a seemingly run-of-the-mill missing person's investigation that he begins to understand the origins of his own hellish identity. Others is a dark exploration into the psyche of the eternal outsider, a tormented freak in a cruel society. Gory, but brilliantly conceived, Herbert will leave you feeling haunted long after reading his final words. --Naomi Gesinger

From Publishers Weekly

Herbert's reputation as the king of British horror is founded on his early gore-oriented "nasties" (The Rats; The Fog; etc.). His newest novel (after '48) packs powerful shocks, but continues the recent trend in his writing toward narratives steered by the complex motivations of his characters. Narrator and private investigator Nicholas DismasA"Dis" to his friendsAis a self-described "monster," afflicted with grotesque birth defects that give him uncommon insight into human behavior. But the search for a child declared dead at birth 18 years before triggers a befuddling cascade of events that defy even his understanding: birth-record traces lead to dead ends, knowledgeable authorities can't be located and Dis finds himself haunted by visions of malformed souls that periodically materialize in his mirror. Collaborating reluctantly with Louise Broomfield, his client's psychic adviser, Dis tracks a suspicious former midwife to the Perfect Rest nursing home. There, he encounters both the repellent Leonard Wisbeech, one of the most diabolically perverse doctors in all medical horror fiction, and secret experiments that shed light on the case and on Dis's own obscure origins. Readers who stick with this tale past its lethargic startAin which Herbert labors to contrast Dis's normalcy and the "ugliness" of more physically appealing peopleAwill find a payoff in the over-the-top climax, in which the freak show Wisbeech secretly presides over runs amok. Though punctuated with long expository passages that explain the novel's central mystery, the finale crackles, finding an admirable balance between terrors of the supernatural and the darkness of the human heart. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Nick "Dis" Dismas, a private investigator in London endowed with an unusual physique, is hired to find the son of a recent widow, missing for 18 years. It seems the child was spirited away immediately after birthAthe mother was told that he had diedAbut a recent visit to a psychic has prompted her to try to find him. Against his better judgment, Dis takes the case, and what he learns about the missing child and, ultimately, himself leads to the disturbing conclusion. A fictional homage to Tod Browning's movie Freaks, this work is intense but not necessarily frightening. As always, Herbert's (Portent) writing is compelling, and his characters are vivid and complex. The only weakness here is plot predictability. Recommended for all suspense/horror collections.AAlicia Graybill, Lincoln City Libs., NE Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Herbert is at the top of his game with this genre-bending, cleverly conceived, and well-written saga of resurrection and redemption. His protagonist, a self-described one-eyed semi-crippled hunchback, is a private investigator named Nick Dismas. (Nick for the convent caretaker who found him, and Dismas for the thief crucified beside Christ who repented and was promised paradise.) The sleuth Dismas is hired to find a child his client says was taken from her at birth when she was just a poor unwed girl. Nick tracks down a dying midwife, finds a beautiful but misshapen soulmate named Constance, and uncovers the perverted Dr. Wisbeech's fiendish--and pornographic--activities involving a host of other malformed humans, including his client's lost but no longer wanted son. Supernatural meets hard-boiled as Nick discovers he's been haunted and redeemed after living in a body like that of the child his earlier self abandoned. A terrific mix of Andrew Vachss and Stephen King--the stuff of great nightmares. Budd Arthur

From Kirkus Reviews

Prolific horror writer Herbert (Portent, 1996, etc.) revives a sentimental favorite, Victor Hugo's Quasimodo, dresses him up in a modern setting, and sends him forth as Nicholas Dismas, private investigator. Dismas was so malformed at birthhunchback, spinal curvature, twisted and withered right leg, birdboned chest, a forehead overlapping his eyes, overlarge ears, flat nose, backhair that formed a tail between his buttocks, and so onthat his mother left the newborn monster by the trash bins behind a nun's convent in a poorer part of London. A prologue set in Hell reveals that Dismas is actually a damned soul, a once irresistibly handsome movie star who is being given one last chance at redemption. This time around, he must live in an exemplary fashion completely at odds with his former evil wayswhich he will not be allowed to remember. Thus, Nick Dismas struggles daily with God: why has he been born such a hideous monster to suffer an entire lifetime of humiliation, vilification, and punishment? (The reader knows: every card is stacked against Dismas's atonement.) Now, hes hired by widow Shelly Ripstone to find the bastard she bore before she married. Shelly never saw her baby, having been told by the hospital that it died almost at birth. But Louise Broomfield, a clairvoyant, has confirmed Shelly's intuition that the child lives. Will Dismas find it for her? As birds and whisperings invade Dismas's mind, Herbert leads his hero into ever more shocking traps while dropping in spells of garden silences under vast clear-blue skies. All clues lead to the Perfect Rest nursing home, whose care-supervisor has the same malformed body as Dismas but an inner beauty that rings bells: her name, Constance Bell (The bells, the bells!) Midway, the gore gathers and the plot veers into The Island of Doctor Moreau territory. Even so, Nick Dismas remains one of the most tenderly drawn monsters since Hugo's bell-ringer. ($75,000 ad/promo) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From the Publisher

"Dazzling--a literary Steven Spielberg." --The Sunday Times "Others has all the raw power of the books that first made James Herbert's name. It's the most compelling and suspenseful book he has yet written, and surely the most vitally personal. Anyone who wants to know what James Herbert is about could do no better than read this novel. Let me warn the fainthearted that Jim has lost none of his ability to shock and disturb the reader." --Ramsey Campbell

About the Author

James Herbert is one of the world's most popular novelists. His books are sold in thirty-three foreign languages, including Russian and Chinese. Widely imitated and hugely influential, his eighteen novels have sold more than 42 million copies worldwide. He is the number-one bestselling author of '48, Fluke, and Portent on The Times of London list. His latest is sure enthrall millions of readers on both sides of the Atlantic. He lives in London, England.

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