Synopses & Reviews
You're an underpaid civil servant who dreams of chucking it all to become a famous author. You live with your overbearing mother who always seems to interrupt when you're writing a key scene. Who always wants to know why you haven't brought home a nice girl.
What you really are is a writer. A brilliant one, too, though like any writer, you sometimes have a dry spell. Your imagination is dark, your inspiration the terrible things that can happen to a young woman traveling alone . . . .
Suddenly, success! You win a magazine contest--first prize is publication for your terrifying short story about a horrible murder on an underground train. A director wants to make a movie of your award-winning story and wants your input on the script. A pretty young journalist seems to be taking a personal interest in you and your career.
Except.
The family of a girl murdered on the underground threatens to sue you and the magazine for glorifying the grisly details of their daughter's death, despite your insistence that you didn't read the news coverage of the murder. The magazine asks you to supply a different story.
The film director wants you to make a few changes in your story. Especially with the lawsuit hanging over everyone's head.
The journalist's interest turns out to merely be professional.
You've been fired.
And, worst of all, your imagination has run dry. You don't have another story in you.
You'll just have to kill someone new . . .
Review
"A gripping horror extravaganza. A richly textured tale of modern horror with classic roots, it confirms Campbell's reputation as one of the most formidable dark fantasists working today."--
Publishers Weekly (starred review) on
The Darkest Part of the Woods"For more than forty years, Ramsey Campbell has been one of the premier horror writers of the English-speaking world. His latest novel is a creepy, sometimes blackly funny account of a haunted bookshop, and it shows Campbell at the top of his considerable form."--The Washington Post Book World on The Overnight
"[A] horror tour de force. His rich and evocative prose serves to wrap scenes in a dense miasma of disturbing images and shadowy shapes. A high water mark of horror."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Overnight
"A sense of impending doom lingers around the edges of this story, and as the incidents escalate, it becomes more palpable. Psychologically intense, this well-crafted horror tale isn't for the faint of heart."--Romantic Times BookClub Magazine on The Overnight
"Campbell draws the reader into the story slowly, accumulating a wealth of detail and family dynamics. One of the most unsettling voices in horror literature, back in fine, eerie form with The Darkest Part of the Woods."--Fangoria
"Pure dark magic."--Cemetery Dance on The Darkest Part of the Woods
"Campbell's masterpiece. Magically fresh and memorable."--Kirkus Reviews on The Darkest Part of the Woods
Review
"One of the most celebrated modern masters of horror, with an unmatched gift for creating claustrophobic dread-filled atmospheres...Secret Story is the most accessible novel Campbell has written in years, with a suspenseful plot that uses the reader's own preconceived notions about the thriller genre against them...Thirty years after his first book was published, Campbell is still producing some of his best work."--Locus
Synopsis
A writer wins a magazine contest, and the first prize is publication of his terrifying short story about a murder on an underground train. Then his imagination runs dry--he doesn't have another story in him. He'll just have to kill someone new.
Synopsis
You're an underpaid civil servant who dreams of chucking it all to become a famous author. You live with your overbearing mother who always seems to interrupt when you're writing a key scene. Your imagination is dark, your inspiration the terrible things that happen to can happen to a young woman traveling alone . . . .Your terrifying short story about a horrible murder on an underground train is to be published. Even better, it will be made into a movie. A pretty young journalist is pursuing you. Except.
You've been fired.
The journalist wants an interview, not a date.
The film's director wants you to make a few changes in your story.
And, worst of all, your imagination has run dry.
You'll just have to kill someone new . . .
About the Author
Ramsey Campbell is one of the world's most renowned and honored horror writers. He has won more British Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards than he has fingers, plus three Bram Stoker Awards. Campbell is the author of such classic works of horror and dark fantasy as
Obsession, The Face That Must Die,
The Nameless,
Incarnate, and
The Influence, and more recently novels,
The Overnight, and
The Darkest Part of the Woods. His short fiction has been collected in several volumes including
Alone With the Horrors and
Scared Stiff. Campbell lives with his wife, Jenny, in Merseyside in England.