I mention all that not to bash the clueless (although there is joy to be had in that), but because unlike any other Campbell novel I've read, this one sticks out because it is actually, well, stolid. This is never a reliably predictable writer and far from a 'stolid' one either LOLOLOL Campbell's idiosyncratic style(s) is exactly why many readers of traditional horror find him intolerably literary, or sometimes just too damn confusing. Now that is a mindboggling comment! One wonders if this gentleman has actually read much of Campbell, because surely two of the author's most endearing traits are his ability to shift his style radically throughout his novels and his frequent insistence on getting so deep into his unreliable protagonists' perspectives that the reader is left adrift in the narrative, unsure what is truth or illusion. Synopsis: precocious lad learns a schoolteacher has a hankering for summoning the deadĪ gentleman here on Goodreads, in a positive review of this book, said of Campbell: one of his most endearing traits as a writer is his stolid reliability: you know that what you're about to read won't be the most experimental or groundbreaking thing. The Searching Dead is the first volume, to be followed by Born to the Dark. His new trilogy The Three Births of Daoloth further develops the cosmic horrors he invented in his first published book, The Inhabitant of the Lake. Ramsey Campbell recently returned to the Brichester Mythos for his novella The Last Revelation of Gla’aki. How could he and his friends Roberta and Jim stop what was growing under a church in the midst of the results of the blitz? Dominic used to write tales of their exploits, but what they face now could reduce any adult to less than a child. Soon Dominic would learn that a neighbour was involved in practices far older and darker than spiritualism, and stumble on a secret journal that hinted at the occult nature of the universe. When his history teacher took the class on a field trip to France it promised to be an adventure, not the first of a series of glimpses of what lay in wait for the world. Dominic Sheldrake has never forgotten his childhood in fifties Liverpool or the talk an old boy of his grammar school gave about the First World War.

The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell