Ghosts Know

by Ramsey Campbell

Ghosts Know is a fascinating exploration of the twists and turns of reality-media personalities, the line between the dead and the living…and how the truth can be twisted to serve all manner of reality.Graham Wilde is a contentious, bombastic host of the talk radio program Wilde Card . His job, as he sees it, is to stir the pot, and he is quite good at it, provoking many a heated call with his eccentric and often irrational audience. He invites Frank Jasper, a purported psychic, to come on the program. He firmly believes that the man is a charlatan, albeit a talented one. When Jasper appears on his show, Wilde draws upon personal knowledge about the man to embarrass him on air, using patter similar to that which Jasper utilizes in his act.Wilde's attack on Jasper earns him the enmity of his guest and some of the members of his audience. He next encounters Jasper when the psychic is hired by the family of a missing adolescent girl to help them find her. Wilde is stunned and then horrified when Jasper seems to suggest that he might be behind the girl's disappearance.Thus begins a nightmarish journey as circumstantial evidence against Wilde begins to mount, alienating his listeners, the radio station, and eventually, his lover. As Wilde descends into a pit of despair, reality and fantasy begin to blur in a kaleidoscope of terror….At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Horror, Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Crime

235 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2011

About the author

Ramsey Campbell is a British writer considered by a number of critics to be one of the great masters of horror fiction. T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today," while S. T. Joshi has said that "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood."

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Graham Wilde is an edgy radio call-in talk show host who runs afoul of a alleged psychic. Wilde is familiar with all the tricks -- researching clients beforehand, asking vague questions that could apply to most anyone and then letting them fill in the blanks based on what they want to hear -- and sets out to expose him for the fraud he is. But when the psychic suggests that Wilde might be connected with the disappearance of a local girl, his world begins to fall apart. In a way that is disturbingly believable in this era of #payattentiontometoo, his reputation plummets in the court of public opinion, calls to his show turn sinister, and even his friends and co-workers have their doubts. The more Wilde attempts to exonerate himself, the deeper he digs his hole (through no fault of his own.) So he resigns himself to the only thing left he can do: ferret out the culprit himself.

Ramsey Campbell is well known as a horror writer, but this is more of a drama that hovers on the edge of mystery. I quite enjoyed the first half or so, but at a certain point after that it loses steam. The mystery aspect is lost for a good portion, until it suddenly comes up again at the end. I became irritated with Campbell's prose. I lost count of the number of times the protagonist was "enraged" by something. That exact word, over and over. And I just became anxious for the whole thing to be resolved. Not in a "I'm dying to find out whodunit" way; more like I've just had enough.

[Doug Bolden · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it can be dangerous to over-generalize any writer's books, many of Ramsey Campbell's novels have struck me as having two threads. The first thread is a comedy of [awkward] errors wrapped around a social obligation - a workplace or a society of neighbors - that borders on depressing or frustrating as people stumble over their own tongues or leave things unsaid but implied. The second thread is the horror element that starts showing up in the uneasy cracks of the first, and later grows to dominate and exacerbate the former until the comedy either breaks into tragedy or is so derailed as to be something else altogether. The horror elements are often restrained, constrained even, to the point of subtle suggestion while the social awkwardness is crystal clear, at least until things spiral out of control and it all goes a bit murky. For those that hate his writing, I suspect this is what they hate, the feeling that they were robbed of a horror novel and instead were given a slightly angry story about an office drone's inability to function in day-to-day society. If you are one of those readers, and I perfectly understand though disagree, you might want to stay away from this book, because Ghosts Know is Campbell's book that is almost entirely a comedy of errors [the jacket blurb calls it a comedy of paranoia, which works beautifully as a description].

Graham Wilde hosts a radio show where callers call in and speak their mind: Wilde Card. A verbal version of an angry but mildly moderated Internet forum. His radio station, Waves, has been bought out by a large corporation [to my American mind, it struck me as something like Target or Walmart], and he is told to dial his show up a notch. Around this time, Kylie Goodchild, a local teen, has gone missing and the fact that her family has brought in a psychic, Frank Jasper, irritates Graham and leads him to confront the psychic on his show. Even though Graham manages to slightly one-up the psychic at his own game, things turn a bit darker when Jasper starts implying that maybe Graham had something to do with Kylie's disappearance. Every time Graham feels he has exonerated himself, something else goes wrong, the events depicted on the cover though I won't mention here for possible spoilerage - another psychic prediction, a lie-detector test that is inconclusive, callers calling in to accuse him - and the more facts rise up the more it looks like he really has something to hide. As a public persona, he has no good place to hide and must take the growing lynch mob in the open. Which leads to violence and increased misunderstanding, and begins to seriously ruin Graham's life.

Campbell's skill in this novel - and I found it quite skilled - is taking those awkward at-crossed-ends conversations he uses in his other novels to add discomfort and weaving them here into suggestive but indefinite failures of communication between two human beings. He also nails the structure of patter that psychics use, where an open question is swung around as though it was a definite statement after some confirmation was given, and so forth. Removing the element of horror made it surprisingly less comfortable than some of his more supernatural numbers, especially in the tenser, denser moments. Having something eat your face off is sometimes more acceptable than having a boss talk down at you about some barely defined report and an inchoate rule of conduct that is not official but nevertheless you seem to be violating

The structure crosses slightly into a mystery novel, with only the tiniest unsure hints of something beyond the natural, and in both cases Campbell drops hints so intangible [at least at first glance] that you might be surprised to find they were ever there. They are this novel's equivalent to scenes of slippery pale objects seen through fogged glass. Masterfully done, though occasionally it gets caught in its own backwash, and I am torn between saying it should not be the first Campbell you read [it shouldn't, maybe Darkest Part of the Woods would be, but I don't know] and pointing out that it might be a good way for those who sneer at horror to have some exposure to him. I'll flip and coin and get back to you someday.

****

Of course, if bookclubs were ever to take up this one, the main question would be how this novel relates to cases where a citizen is grilled and tried in the public eye, often with few real facts to condemn them, and how months of their life can be destroyed by people who are willing to pronounce "GUILTY" based merely on what some loud mouthed pundit shouts or because coworkers at the water cooler want to make some big deal about something that may not even be germane to the case. While Graham's seeming culpability is highly influenced by improbable and nearly improbable coincidences, it is not hard to think back to cases where facts were filtered through preconceived notions. Not sure if any particular case was the inspiration here, but it would make for an interesting opening to discuss such cases in general.

[Icy_Space_Cobwebs · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Review from 2nd reading, Dec. 25 2018)

I originally read this novel in November 2013, so rereading it yesterday was fresh. I'm sure I got more out of it as well (smile). Mr. Campbell here again demonstrates his genius at locality, as he does in THE OVERNIGHT, which I had just finished the night before reading GHOSTS KNOW. Manchester radio personality Graham Wilde hosts a talk show on WAVES radio, a media operation about to be taken over by the Frugo conglomerate (which figures prominently in THE OVERNIGHT as well). Wilde has a temper issue, which he struggles constantly throughout the novel to control. Unfortunately, he is not the only one. He is set off by an "American psychic," about whom some of his callers rave. He and his producer/girlfriend Christine attend one of the psychic's appearances in Manchester, and Wilde unearths facts about the man calling himself Frank Jasper. From ( there, everything unspools, and I do mean everything. As with much of Mr. Campbell's fiction, a feckless protagonist who, with good reason (genetics and nurture) has serious psychological issues, is unable to discern the correct steps to take and more or less plays the Minotaur blundering through a china shop. The consequences are dreadful, of course, and not just for the protagonist.

I was so absorbed that I read this novel in one day (on Christmas).

[Kenneth Hursh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Campbell is a prolific and vaunted horror writer. I have enjoyed his books in the past and looked forward to Ghosts. In the book’s acknowledgements, Campbell said it was a story he had been mulling since the 1970s. If it had been fermenting that long, it had to be terrific!

Well—Graham Wilde is a confrontational radio talk show host who thinks a psychic, Frank Jasper, who has been called in for help on the murder of a local girl, is a fake. Wilde knows Jasper from childhood and embarrasses Jasper when he has him appear on the radio show. Then Jasper has a vision regarding the murdered girl that implicates Wilde in the murder. So far, so good. Looked like the plot would be Wilde and Jasper backstabbing each other. But, no, the intriguing Jasper antagonist simply drops out of the story at that point, and Wilde proceeds, in bumbling fashion, to try and expose the real killer to clear his name. He does expose the real killer—a character with which Wilde had no prior conflict—by getting the real killer to confess on the air.

Only he doesn’t. I read through the salient parts several times to make sure I hadn’t missed something. There was no logical reason at all for Wilde to suspect this person was the real killer, and in the on-air exchange, the real killer said nothing remotely approaching a confession. The killer didn’t even mention the crime. How this “mystery” was solved was the only real mystery, along with why the book was called Ghosts Know, since there was no ghost or other supernatural element whatsoever.

If your main character has an enemy, then that is who or what your main character should ultimately confront. And if the story is about solving a crime, then the crime should be solved in a way that makes some kind of sense.

[Horror DNA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ramsey Campbell is no stranger to horror fiction. He is the author of over 30 genre novels, the recipient of several Bram Stoker Awards, and, most impressive, the lifetime president of the British Fantasy Society, which has promoted the best in fantasy, science fiction, and horror since 1971. He might not be a North American household name à la Stephen King, but if you've ever stepped foot in a library or bookstore, you've undoubtedly been in the presence of his work without even knowing it.

Ghosts Know is, to my count, Campbell's 31st novel. It's not as ambitious or memorable as some of his earlier work like The Doll Who Ate His Mother or The Hungry Moon, but it's an enjoyable diversion into a world of treachery and dangerous influence, all written in the present tense and seen through the eyes of an overbearing, potentially unreliable radio host.

You can read Chris's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.

[Jon Von · Rating 4 out of 5]

A British talk radio host whose persona borders on "shock jock" territory has an unpleasant knack for digging at the core of things find himself the source of some controversy when the murder of a teenage girl creates an outrage and gradually public opinion seems to think he might have something to do with it. In a paranoid comedy of errors, Mr Wilde finds himself with an insane world turning against him as he struggles to find the truth, digging his own grave with every grim joke.
It's a mystery thriller at heart, but Ghost Knows is a sort of provocative satire on mob mentality. Issues of race, religion and class are explored in how they feed into this sinister tidal wave of public opinion. It's chilling and funny and works as a mystery.
It's interesting how this doesn't seem to be a very popular one for the author because I found it to be very good. I think perhaps outside of the context of the author's work it might be a confusing place to start. I'd recommend The Count of Eleven and The Face That Must Die as more spiritual successors.

[Max Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

If that is labeled as horror nowadays, I'm truly terrified. Spoiler: there are no actual ghosts and no supernatural elements here. There's also nothing particularly horrific in the events described. Some people label it as mystery but the mystery of who killed the girl is somewhere in the background most of the time. It's just an okayish story about a dude who lost his job and girlfriend. I'm mildly disappointed.

Perhaps this was a bad book to start my acquaintance with Mr. Campbell but who knew. You'd think that the book titled "Ghosts Know" labeled as horror genre from a horror genre author would actually be what it promised.

Oh yeah, and another thing: maybe it's a british thing or maybe it's the author but half of the dialogues run around in circles where people just keep answering questions with questions until the only thought left is "For god's sake, just tell it straight already."

[Jack Wolfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shocktober is here! Which means horror and ghost stories and weird fiction and AHHHHH!

Ramsey Campbell's been on my radar for a while. He's pretty respected in his field-- the great critic S.T. Joshi would tell ya he's the best weird fiction guy going today. The similarly respected (to some degree) talents of Peter Straub, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King all chime in on the back of "Ghosts Know," but their blurbs seem curiously muted, to me. Here's what King has to say:

"Good horror writers are quite rare, and Campbell is better than just good."

And here's Straub:

"In some ways Ramsey Campbell is the best of us all."

"Better than just good?" "In some ways... he's the best?" What's with all the qualification, doods? Are you just jealous of a guy who can clearly manipulate language with absolute precision to achieve whatever effect he desires? Or are you no better than the folks on Goodreads who say "Ghosts Know" is boring, unlikeable, unreadable, confusing, pointless, not even scary, etc?

I think the hesitations of King and Straub, and the poor composite review of "Ghost Know" on Goodreads, are a testament to Campbell's uniqueness as a horror writer. "Ghost Know" is, in truth, not particularly scary. If you're looking for creaking doors and cobwebs and werewolves, you probably wanna go someplace else (may I recommend Gersebermps?). The horror that interests Campbell is more similar to the interests of the other great literary weird writers... The fear of being persecuted for no reason, the fear of the mob, the fear of the past coming back to life, the fear of not knowing who you really are... You know, all that Kafka shit, that Al Hitchcock shit. That's what Campbell's after, in "Ghosts Know." Generally speaking, you can't explore those fears by having a zombie rip off somebody's arm. (Though I will say that "Ghosts Know" has a scene of violence that's probably one of the three most disturbing I've ever read.) You have to take your time, you have to prolong the dread, you have to be subtle.

Maybe, maybe Campbell takes a little too long prolonging things. And maybe he relies on a few implausible twists (like a certain "test" late in the book) to make his points. And maybe he leans a little too heavily on stock phrases (clenching fists, rage boiling, etc). Or MAYBE all of these seeming mistakes are truly intentional on his part, and crucial to understanding the character of Graham Wilde, the book's narrator, who we trust at first, and then learn to dislike, and then start to question, and then feel sympathy with, and then...

Wilde's encounters with the psychic Frank Jasper and the family of the missing Kylie Goodchild have a clean, readable surface, until a couple of truly inspired revelations make us re-examine all that was under and around those interactions.

Ghosts? Hallucinations? Psychic phenomena? Nothing at all? Campbell will never tell! That's part of the fun, gang.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I regard Ramsey Campbell as the kind of horror genius so many people think Stephen King is. However, he has his off moments, and this is one of them. Given the title and the opening set-up (a radio host trying to impress his new boss exposes a phony medium) I expected some sort of ghost story but instead it's a literary suspense story in which the medium's investigation into a missing girl leads to the radio host becoming suspect number one in her death.
That kind of story's not my cup of tea, and even allowing for that, it's just not that gripping a story. Campbell's flair for generating odd, tense moments between people felt off here. And given the title, the premise and the inside-the-flap copy, I think it was reasonable of me to expect, you know, actual ghosts, but there are none.
A real disappointment.

[Holly · Rating 1 out of 5]

After I finished this book, I had a really hard think about whether or not I missed something, because it was difficult for me to believe that such a highly praised author could produce such a bad novel. The plot is unoriginal, the main character uninteresting, and the ending totally divorced from the rest of the story.

If you need an example, here's the main twist of the book, the final puzzle piece the main character needs to complete his goal:
Robert and Bob are the same person. And the main character had to hear another character refer to Robert as Bob to make this connection.

I wish I was kidding. I have never before been angry that I finished a book I wasn't enjoying, but here we are. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.

[Jashvina Shah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the worst books I’ve ever read and that’s not even getting to the substance of the book. The writing is clunky and it’s not at all clear. Each sentence is like a mind game and it just really... no it was bad, especially at the start. I kept reading because I never DNF because apparently I like punishing myself. Anyway, this isn’t horror, it’s barely a thriller and it’s, at best, a boring and pointless mystery. Maybe the concept could’ve been good, but it wasn’t executed well at all. The premise of the book and plot and characters being boring I can understand but the prose?!?! Yikes. Also, there was a lot of pointless things added that did nothing except to confuse.

[Ramey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked up this book from the library after hearing great things about Campbell as a horror writer. Sorry to see I apparently picked the dud of the lot; truly one of the worst books I’ve ever read.

The prose consisted mostly of circular vagaries that were infuriating if not completely impossible to slog through. The only interesting character in the book all but disappears midway through. And the “conclusion” is anything but conclusive.

I nearly DNF multiple times; I wanted the answer to the mystery just *barely* enough to keep going, and ended feeling disappointed and angry for wasting my time.

[Hallie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good: great use of language and seeing from the perspective of an interesting, if not necessarily likeable narrator (though not necessarily unlikeable, he's ethical but bold and assertive and riddled with anger issues).

The bad: the plot.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy read. Good characters and plenty of wit. Similar to Face Must Die, but less manic. I kinda like getting lost in the madness, so slightly prefer Face.

[[on hiatus, probably forever] The rockabilly werewolf from Mars · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only Campbell novel that I didn't like. Normally unsympathetic protagonists won't put me off reading a book, but I couldn't stand this one.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as cohesive as Ramsey thinks it is. Especially the sections of dialog. Its unclear who is speaking and t he premise wasn't good enough to redeem the confusion.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but too much nattering back and forth like “do you know?” “What do you know?” That kind of bs. And would’ve made a better novella.

[Julia Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sort of like a Campbell take on giallo. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...

[Sheldon Locke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sharp, witty and incisive. A whodunit with a unique cast of characters.

[Miriam Ezra · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried so hard. But I could not get myself invested. I didn't care about the main character, and he was so infuriating I simply lost interest in the plot as well. Life's too short. Don't recommend

[Rosanna Schacht · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a great read. Not much of anything happens. Readable but boring.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author writes horror, but for me this book was more a thriller mystery book. I could see how it is labeled horror as you did feel like you were on the edge of your seat trying to figure out what was going on. The main character, Graham Wilde is an arrogant radio show host who is trying to please everyone for a job he hates. He is quick to anger, but has not shown any real aggression... or has he? Unfortunately I did not like his character until the end. Still, I was drawn to what was happening and wanted to solve the murder mystery he found himself surrounded.

I didn't like Graham because he was arrogant, too quick to anger and he kept pulling stupid stunts and getting himself integrated into the murder mystery. He just couldn't see what he was doing to himself because he was too busy pointing the finger at others. However, it was a very clever way by the author to get him involved in a murder he wouldn't have any real association with otherwise.

I also admit that I was a bit lost at the beginning. Not sure why or if it was me or the book, but I just couldn't keep who was who straight in my head until about 1/2 the book. It wasn't crucial to the mystery, just confusing. This also wasn't a big character driven book for me, but it drove me in it's plot. I really became involved in who did what and why.

I give this book 3 stars. I personally like a more character driven plot but I will say that the mystery itself really drew me in. I do like the twists and turns this book took and I didn't guess who did it in the end. So for those that like a book that keeps you guessing, this may be your book!

[Tasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Received this for review and thought it might make an interesting Halloween read, but found it frustrating enough that I probably would have put it down early on if it weren't so short, and if I wasn't a sucker for a mystery. The protagonist is frustratingly opaque, probably to foster the sense that he probably committed the murder that's central to the book's mystery plot, especially since he's constantly given to blinding rage, and new evidence against him keeps cropping up, which he deals with via a mixture of apathy and fury. But between the constant temper tantrums and the lack of any sense of him as a person, and the way he keeps abruptly doing things without giving readers any insight into his motives either before or after, there's no meaningful rooting interest in the book. Most of the plot twists are abruptly pulled out of nowhere, making this book feel tremendously hollow, or like an exquisite-corpse exercise where no one involved had any stake in making the latest reveal follow logically from the previous one. The resolution to the mystery comes out of nowhere as well, leading to a very contrived ending. Meanwhile, a central character who spends the book earning a thorough comedown all but disappears midway through the book, with no significant resolution. And the protagonist's girlfriend is barely developed, constantly appears and disappears throughout the book as convenient, then meets a baffling and massively clichéd end for no particular narrative reason. All around, a baffling and frustrating read.

[Wendy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was very disappointed in this book. I picked it up at the library because it was in the new books section and the blurb was very interesting. The book, however, was not. At least not to me. I had no feelings at all about any of the characters and despite it being such a short book I had to struggle to complete it.

Graham Wilde is a talk show host on a radio station in Manchester, where a local girl has gone missing. He comes into contact with a self-proclaimed psychic who is in the area to put on some local shows. Wilde and Jasper (the psychic) meet at the show and shortly after two things happen: Jasper goes on the radio with Wilde and the parents of the missing girl ask him to consult on the case. There is some friction between the pragmatic radio host and Jasper, and shortly thereafter Jasper implicates Wilde in the case of the missing girl. The reader is meant to wonder if there was perhaps something odd with Wilde or if it is just the enmity of Jasper that is causing him to be implicated.

This plot is definitely interesting, and has a lot of promise, but I just didn't connect at all with this book. The writing itself was off-putting to me, and as I said I didn't care for the characters. I had no feelings for Wilde, either positive or negative. For me, a book lives and dies with the people in them. I can overlook shortcomings if I love (or even hate) them. I felt the ending was poorly constructed also. I had heard positive things about Campbell, but this was just not for me.

[Saytchyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book, but I'm not sure why it's called horror. Even among literary horror novels, it doesn't quite seem to fit. It's my first reading of Campbell, although he's been recommended to me many times, and I will read more by the author, because he's a fine writer, and his characters are wonderfully real. I hope other novels by Campbell are creepier.

Graham Wilde is fascinating. His struggles with rage could easily have become overbearing or clichéd, but they did not, primarily because he never loses the struggle, never lets his rage take over, making this reader wonder if his anger was transferred, originally targeted at himself for being a coward and then redirected at everyone else. Wilde is not a coward, reacting to danger in the same way most anyone would, but I wonder if he sees himself subconsciously as cowardly. Psychologically, he is complex.

The story is a murder mystery, and Wilde is the primary murder suspect. He could be an unreliable narrator. It's a fascinating story. And the despair he sinks into is profound. But as I read the jacket cover, which promises a "kaleidoscope of terror", I wonder if I missed something. I didn't feel that I had while reading. Perhaps it's a book that reads better the second time.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not often I find reading a book this excruciating. It isn't necessarily a flaw, either, because I don't mind being challenged.
The main character, though, is the most unlikable fellow I've ever read about. He's Alan Partridge without any of the light side.
I think the author has done a good job with this portrayal of a character with an intense dissonance between his behaviour and his real self. In some ways, this is a cautionary tale about the importance of being genuine. In evidence of that, there are a few episodes in the book where this character questions if he is even real, whether if he stops speaking he will cease to be. If he is "anyone" without his voice.
He's a horrid cringe-worthy man who ingratiates himself with everyone he meets to almost Fawlty-esque lengths, yet deep down despises the entire lot of them. Hence, his almost ungovernable rage. The contrast between his inner derision and his jolly gung-ho chat is quite jarring. For that alone, I gave the book 3 stars.

[Greg Gbur · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The British author Ramsey Campbell has long been my favorite writer of horror, and one of his novellas — Needing Ghosts — has the unusual distinction of being the only story I’ve ever read that made me doubt my sanity when I finished it. I’ve always had a hard time keeping up with all of his writing, however, and so it was only recently that I got around to reading his 2013 novel Ghosts Know.

Broadly speaking, almost all of Campbell’s novels can usually be divided into two categories: supernatural horror and non-supernatural murder/thriller. The former includes Campbell’s Ancient Images (1989) and The Grin of the Dark (2007), while the latter includes The Count of Eleven (1992) and The Seven Days of Cain (2011).

Ghosts Know is somewhat unique in that it not only straddles the two categories, but it is also a genuine mystery novel, something that I have not seen from Campbell before."

Read the whole review.

[Daniel R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

One part paranoid thriller, one part eerie whodunnit. With GHOSTS KNOW, Ramsey Campbell channels a little of Robert Bloch's pessimistic sense of humor through an acute psychological study.

A confrontational radio talk show host must get a little more provocative to keep his ratings high and his new corporate owners happy. However, when he agrees to interview a renowned psychic medium, he discovers good natured antagonism gone terribly awry. Soon, he our protagonist is deeply involved in a missing girl's fate.

The book is an urban nightmare, with plenty of weird elements (including a crew of talk show callers who seem more ghostly than they ought) though it plays things surprisingly straight. Are there ghosts? Is this all mundane and simple psychological breakdown? Campbell plays his cards close to his chest and withholds answers until the very end.

A Campbell novel is a treat, and GHOSTS KNOW is no exception.

[Catherine Cavendish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ramsey Campbell is a true great of the horror genre and Ghosts Know is one of my favourites of his. The story centres on a radio talk show host of the most confrontational kind. He is also a total skeptic who decides to take on a supposed psychic and expose him as a complete fake. As might be imagined, the psychic- Frank Jasper - is not particularly partial to being labelled a charlatan and when he assists a family whose daughter is missing, things begin to get more than a little complicated for Maddox. I read this story at one sitting because I simply couldn't put it down. A few hours later, I emerged, thoroughly satisfied, my head still full of the clever twists of the plot. Maddox is not a particularly likeable character - quite the reverse n fact - but I still managed to empathise with his situation. Now that's the mark of a first class writer!