Book Review: "Possession" by Peter James

Let me start by saying this: I got genuinely upset that I had to put this book down from time-to-time and do 'life'. I don't know how I have got to my 30s without having read this book already but as you can already tell, it is going to be a very positive review. From the cover, it looks like a crime thriller novel but it is not - it is contemporary horror through and through. It has everything: ghosts, possessions, exorcisms, false leads, malevolent spirits and someone beneath a lake. It was so good I just kept trying to take in as much as I can - the atmosphere was written perfectly, the horror scenes were not cheesy and filled with unnecessary blood and gore, the ending was spectacular and fit the book perfectly. This was a mischievous mixture of evil and questioning - a book that returns us to the very real possibility of the demonic through characters who categorically do not believe in it until it is too late.

Fabian's mother is asleep when her son comes home and almost wakes her up. She talks to him briefly and falls back asleep. That morning, she's told that her son died in a horrific car accident in France - around the same time that she thought she saw him come home. Weirdly enough, the husband she is separating from had the exact same occurrence. At work in a literary agency, she sees a possible message from her son upon the computer when she turns it on. The funeral, a terribly sad affair. And that's when things start going horribly wrong for her. Cold spots in her home, disembodied voices and so much more. It starts slow at first and then, as it builds to crescendo after crescendo, it drives her mad. Her ex-husband doesn't believe a word of it, and neither does she, but after so many encounters, she finally calls on a medium by the name of Morgan Ford.

Peter James writes the first third of this book with brilliance. We have people who obviously do not believe in the paranormal or the existence of spirits or the spirit world and yet, we also have a woman who cannot seem to explain it away. The first few chapters of the book don't just present the horrifying crescendos but also the odd peculiarities of being haunted. It is classic and feels almost like an early-2000s exorcism movie.

Morgan Ford seems like a charlatan at first but then he states that he can definitely feel it in the air. He seems to know things about Fabian that he could not possibly know, but people are still weary of his abilities. He mentions a girl named Carrie whom Fabian apparently abandoned after a short relationship with her. However, Fabian's mother knew Carrie to still be alive. After visiting Carrie's estranged mother who believes her daughter is in Boston and finding copies of the postcards sent to the mother among Fabian's belongings, it is clear that Carrie is somewhere else entirely. But without knowledge of what happened to her, Fabian's soul cannot be laid to rest. Without knowledge of who Fabian really was, his soul cannot be laid to rest. A huge secret, held by the mother herself, is about to be revealed. And the spirit she's encountering might not be Fabian at all...

Peter James has some serious talent for writing a twisted story and I'm going to ignore the huge chunks of dialogue that I'm personally not into for the sake of saying that these little conversations that almost seem pointless, are actually quite important. There's a very important main character in this book that seems to know more than they are letting on and you almost don't see it. But along with the mentions of exorcisms and requiem masses, we are drawn into the world of the occult, the world of seances and the world of spirits and mediums and we are made to question whether all of it is just parlour tricks. From the symbolism of a burnt rose to a vineyard Fabian visited without telling his mother, there are plenty of things Fabian's mother knows about him, but there are plenty of things she does not...