Do you believe in the supernatural abilities of the Indians and the power they have against demonic forces? What happens when a demon invades the modern world? Is the power of a shaman enough to stop him? This story is not for the faint of heart or those who are easily scared.
An old man, Seymour Wallis, wanders into the sanitation department of San Francisco looking for help with his house: it is breathing. After talking to him for a few minutes, John Hyatt agrees to investigate to see if he can figure out what the problem is. Mr. Wallis says his house is breathing. Turns out, the walls aren’t moving like the house is taking breaths, but the sound of breathing is there. John makes the mistake of talking to, of yelling at whatever is breathing. In no way did he foresee what he was about to encounter.
One by one, others become involved. A Native American shaman joins Hyatt and Willis to stop this demon who is doing everything in his power to break free of the bonds that are keeping him still. He wants to be reborn. There are certain things he needs in order to do this, and the very last one will make him unstoppable.
This is not a story for those kept awake at night by reading scary stuff. Bloody, gory, violent, and downright gross at times, this story will keep you on the edge of your seat right until the very end.
This is the first book by Graham Masterson that I have ever read, and he now has a new fan. I was sent a copy of this book free of charge by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. If you would like to have your own copy of this book, I have provided an Amazon link below.
Amazon Link: Charnel House
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Favorite Sentences:
It was like a sibilant whispering at first, like the wind tossing a piece of soft tissue across a room.
I used to own a car, but keeping the payments up on a sanitation officer’s salary was like trying to clear up a blocked-up sewer with a toothbrush.
The vacant eye sockets looked like dark mocking eyes, and the jaws were bared in a bony grin.
It was the apparition of Coyote, rearing like a huge, pale praying mantis, his skull grinning fixedly on top of its shapeless trunk, his four arms smashing the remains of the window aside without hesitation.
The last thing I wanted to do was fight a supernatural grizzly in the confines of a Ford Pinto.
New Words Learned:
ascetic – rigorously abstinent; austere
bakelite – trademark, any one of a class of thermosetting resins used as electric insulators and for making plastic ware, telephone receivers, etc
dotard – a person, especially an old person, exhibiting a decline in mental faculties; a weak-minded or foolish old person.
effete – weak, ineffectual, or decadent as a result of overrefinement
katabatic – In meteorology, of a wind or air current moving downward or down a slope
limned – represented in painting or drawing
manitous – (among the Algonquian Indians) deified spirits or forces
1850-1915, wikimedia commons
meerschaum – a tobacco pipe with a bowl made out of a mineral, hydrous magnesium silicate, that occurs in white, claylike masses and is used for ornamental carvings
ormolu – a gold-coloured alloy of copper, tin, or zinc used to decorate furniture, mouldings, etc
profligate – wildly extravagant or wasteful
serried – pressed together or compacted, as soldiers in rows
spangling – glittering or shining
stroboscopic – of, by means of, utilizing, or relating to a stroboscope, a device for studying the motion of a body, especially a body in rapid revolution or vibration, by making the motion appear to slow down or stop, as by periodically illuminating the body or viewing it through widely spaced openings in a revolving disk
Yaqui – a Taracahitian people of Sonora, Mexico
About the Author:
Graham Masterton was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1946. He worked as a newspaper reporter before taking over joint editorship of the British editions of Penthouse and Penthouse Forum magazines. His debut novel, The Manitou, was published in 1976 and sold over one million copies in its first six months. It was adapted into the 1978 film starring Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Stella Stevens, Michael Ansara, and Burgess Meredith. Since then, Masterton has written over seventy-five horror novels, thrillers, and historical sagas, as well as published four collections of short stories and edited Scare Care, an anthology of horror stories for the benefit of abused children. He and his wife, Wiescka, have three sons. They live in Cork, Ireland, where Masterton continues to write.
