Here's an odd one: 500 pages of apparent grim sub-James Herbert Brit-crime-cum-horror. And yet, although everything about this book -- from that title through the dreadful cover and even the plot synopsis -- screams 'run away', journalist Will Kingdom's debut is consistently impressive.

That could be because, unfashionably, The Cold Calling is actually a book about its characters rather than events. Characters like policeman Bobby Maiden, victim of a maybe-not-accidental hit and run, restored, Lazarus-like, by the healing hands of one Sister Andy. Like the American 'Holy' Grayle Underhill, a paranormal journo who journeys to the UK looking for her sister, missing after hooking up with New Agers probing ancient stone monuments in the Black Hills. Like the ageing Marcus Bacton, editor of a loon-infested micro-circulation Fortean magazine. And like Cindy the Shaman, an actor-ventriloquist convinced that a serial killer is slaughtering innocents across the land as part of some elaborate pagan plan.

Too much? Yes and no, because Kingdom marshals his large and surprisingly middle-aged cast with genuine skill, forging believable relationships and bestowing upon them -- for this kind of novel, at least -- strong, well-realised dialogue. And if he does up the oddball ante a tad too far -- Andy is a woman and Cindy a cross-dresser, no less -- it never quite gets in the way. Too many pages, certainly, but few if any are squandered.

And nor does he push the supernatural hokum. Time and again the reader anticipates a special effects blow-out, but even the big climatic (sic) showdown hangs just the right side of sceptical. Part Wicker Man, part trad whodunnit, part tough gangster thriller, The Cold Calling finally stands revealed as a tidy charmer and Kingdom as a real find.