FORGOTTEN BOOK: NOBODY TRUE

 Nobody True by James Herbert  (2003)

James Herbert (1943-2013) was a bestselling British horror writer whose books sold more than 54 million copies and have been translated into at last 34 languages.  At one time he was considered the British Stephen King, who presented him with the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award in 2010, the same year he was awarded an OBE.  He burst onto the publishing scene with the visceral The Rats (1974), which would eventually be followed by two sequels and an original graphic novel set in a post-nuclear future.  The Rats was followed by The Fog, an eco-disaster novel, and then by The Survivor, a ghost story.   Herbert's 23 novels covered the wide range of horror, and many in very original ways.  (His final novel, Ash, has Princess Diana and her secret son living in a Scottish castle with Lord Lucan, Muammar Qaddafi, and Robert Maxwell; talk about pushing the boundaries.)  Six films, two BBC radio programs, and a computer game have been based on his work.

Nobody True is an afterlife story, and a ghost story without a ghost, and a serial killer novel, and a mystery thriller all rolled up into one.  James True is a successful advertising art director and a partner in one of London's most up and coming firms.  He is also a murder victim who did not happen to be there when he died.

James, you see, is subject to out of body experiences (OBEs), of which he has little control and has spent much of his life trying to explain.  

After one such experience, he returns to his body and finds that he has been brutally murdered and mutilated.  His death is strikingly similar to a series of vicious killings that have recently terrorized the city; the M.O. is not exact, though, and there are questions whether he was an actual victim of the mad killer, but the similarities include things that have not been made public.  Not a ghost -- because he is not dead -- James must negotiate the world and his home without being able to make any sort of mental or physical contact.  As he roams through his past, uncertain of his exact future, he discovers that much of his life has been based on lies.  His father, his mother, his wife, his best friend and business partners, even his beloved daughter -- none are whom he had thought they were.  Then he discovers that the actual serial killer has decided to target his wife and daughter and he is unable to prevent or stop it in any way...

At its heart, this is a novel of growth and acceptance.  It's a tricky read because James at times is a very unlikable person and a bit of a dim bulb, but the narrative sweep soon takes over, bringing the reader to  a somewhat trivialized conclusion.

Not one of Herbert's better books, but still a very worthwhile one.