The Rats - (Rats Trilogy) by James Herbert (Paperback)

About the Book

The fiftieth-anniversary edition of the horror classic. Profoundly unsettling, The Rats is the multimillion-copy bestseller from James Herbert.

Book Synopsis

'Splatterpunk deluxe . . . I loved it then, love it still'
- Stephen King

The brutal, masterfully gory classic of British horror, The Rats is the multimillion-copy bestseller from James Herbert.

The first victim was a former paper salesman drinking himself into oblivion down by the docks. Next a child and her beloved dog, then six drifters fighting over a bottle of gin - all devoured by a black, writhing mass of giant rats.

As London descends into panicked chaos, high school teacher Harris is pulled head-first into the nightmare when a student arrives with a rat bite on his hand. And he quickly realises that this is no ordinary creature, nothing like anyone has ever seen before.

With their intelligent, wicked-looking eyes and razor-sharp teeth, the balance of power between man and rat has suddenly - shockingly, horribly - shifted.

The rats have had their first taste of human blood.

And they're hungry for more . . .

'Lean, mean, and nasty as punk, The Rats are here!'
- Grady Hendrix, bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House

'A seminal work from a king of British horror'
- Adam Nevill, author of The Ritual

Review Quotes

"The Rats is splatterpunk deluxe. Not only great, gory fun but a prime example of what was once called "the British nasty." I loved it then, love it still" --Stephen King

"Lean, mean, and nasty as punk, The Rats are here! Capable of inciting riots and causing bloodshed" --Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House

"One of the more fecund of all horror novels: its children are many, its litter both large and ravenous" --Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians

"A one-off; a true horror original" --Peter James, Sunday Times bestselling author of the Roy Grace books

"A seminal work from a king of British horror" --Adam Nevill, author of The Ritual

"Herbert's The Rats is a big personal influence of mine. If you're a horror reader seeking to delve into the history of the genre, it's one of a handful of books you really ought to read" --Nick Cutter, author of The Troop

"The effectiveness of the gruesome set pieces and brilliant finale are all its own" --The Sunday Times

"With The Rats, Herbert established himself as a master of the sort of apocalyptic horror that's so popular today" --The Guardian

"The Rats is a delightfully gory James Herbert classic" --SciFiWard

About the Author

James Herbert was not only Britain's number one bestselling writer of chiller fiction - a position he held ever since the publication of his first novel - but was also one of our greatest popular novelists. Widely imitated and hugely influential, his twenty-three novels have sold more than 54 million copies worldwide and have been translated into over thirty languages. In 2010, he was made the Grand Master of Horror by the World Horror Convention and was also awarded an OBE by the Queen for services to literature. His final novel was Ash. James Herbert died in March 2013.