From Publishers Weekly
Campbell provides a memorably ghoulish answer to the cliché question about where horror writers get their ideas in this suspenseful skin-crawler.
Mersey Mouth magazine hopes to promote a local author through its fiction contest and believes it has found him in Dudley Smith, whose story submission vividly recounts a grisly subway murder. What they don't know is that the tale is more truth than fiction: Dudley, a secret psychopath, has for years been writing up his unsolved crimes as splatter thrillers for his own amusement. Enabled by a doting mother and egged on by oblivious publishers, Dudley immerses himself in his "Mr. Killogram" character and spends much of the story setting up editor Patricia Martingale as his next victim. Campbell deftly laces the grim events with subtle insights on the author's responsibility to his characters and the public's appetite for exploitation, which help make this one of his better nonsupernatural shockers.
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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
