Behind the Couch

British horror author James Herbert, whose blood-curdling novels include The Rats and The Fog , passed away last night at the age of 69. The writer died at his home in Sussex, and is survived by is wife and three daughters. The cause of death has yet to be disclosed. Herbert exploded onto the horror scene in 1974 with his debut novel The Rats - the nightmarish tale of mutant, flesh-eating rats and the bloody havoc they wreck throughout a squalidly depicted London. It sold 100,000 copies in the two weeks after it was published. His follow up, The Fog (completely unrelated to the John Carpenter film) told of a mysterious fog that spreads across Britain mutating those who encounter it into homicidal maniacs. Often bleak and downbeat, Herbert’s stories were uncompromising in their depiction of the violent demise of humankind in the face of unspeakable evil - often of an environmentally created bent. Born in London in 1943, Herbert studied graphic design at college before going on...