A Concert of Ghosts

by Campbell Armstrong

Arrested for growing marijuana on his farm, Harry Tenant escapes from the cops and joins up with Alison Seagrove, a young woman coincidentally investigating the mysterious deaths of every one of Harry's former counterculture chums.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

244 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

aka Thomas Altman, Campbell Black, Jeffrey Campbell (with Jeffrey Caine), Thomas Weldon

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Campbell Armstrong got a degree in philosophy before taking a position teaching creating writing. After his excellent series about counterterrorism expert Frank Pagan, Mr. Armstrong has written several compelling novels of crime and life in his native Glasgow.

Reviews

[Mirrani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a mystery. There is no question about it. From the very beginning you are taken on a wild ride by the author, into a gray area that begins in the sixties and might as well end with a drug-induced hallucination. The mystery itself is that bizarre. But it is thoroughly enjoyable. It surprised me that I couldn't put the book down, even as life inside of it was getting stranger and stranger with every page I turned.

You can't properly describe this book to other readers, you simply have to ask them to experience it. The writing is so perfect that at times you can physically feel the essence of silence or the complete emptiness in knowing you aren't who you think you are. There is just no way to explain this experience, which is fitting with the sixties, I think. It isn't often you come across a book where the writing so perfectly mimics the setting that it makes the hair stand up on your arms.

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the first books that ever truly freaked me out.

The story was phenomenal on its own but the ending just gave me chills with the iron fist in a velvet glove brutality.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Busted for growing dope, Harry Tennant's self-imposed exile is further shattered when journalist Alison Seagrove confronts him with an old photograph. The picture of five hippies, taken on a San Francisco street in 1968, had become a famous snapshot of a nation's ideals before they soured and according to Alison, two of the hippies are dead, and two are missing - leaving Tennant, whose memory of the other people is a blank. Persuaded by Alison to go on the run, he tries to track down the lost old friends - and his memories.
To be fair, this was published in 1992 so I’m coming to it very late but this really didn’t work for me. I’ve liked Armstrong’s work in the past but this felt confused and overlong, with basically unlikeable characters, a nasty little incest sub-plot and an ending that seemed to go on and on into a bleakness that felt painfully manufactured.

[Brucie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Mysteriously thrilling, characterization is subtly colored by the goofy paranoid reflections of the main man, zig-zag path through vivid locations leads to obvious but unwanted conclusion. Really great writing!

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor Harry is busted for growing dope on his upstate NY property. Not only do the local law folk trash his house, they kill his dog (bastards!). Poor Harry is now totally alone, no friends, estranged from his family, facing hard time when a mysterious young female reporter pops into his life with an old photo showing a much younger hippie Harry posing with four other flower children in SF in '68. The problem is, Harry can't remember any of it. In fact, he can't remember a whole 9-year chunk of his life. One day he was getting stoned in the Haight, next thing he knows he's a weed farmer in NY...

So? Sounds like it could be cool, doesn't it? Well, it starts off alright and then it quickly gets bogged down in a poor plotting plan: draw out the "mystery" as long as possible with an unlikely road trip and unbelievable dangers, add tons of unrevealing and repetitive dialogue, and ...reveal, in the final pages a weak explanation for it all.

A few good passages as Harry struggles to reconnect his neurons, (I get it, he feels vague, so do we) but the outcome is just too sketchy and unconvincing to have warranted all the implied terror and fear leading up to it.

Final impression: disappointing.

[Preciosa Promita · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first novel of Campbell Armstrong that I've read. It truly is an evocation of lost memories, lost love and it certainly can lure any reader deeper into the story. It's kind of similar to Shutter Island, psychologically complex and makes you wonder what's going on in here. I'm still pretty puzzled. Was Harry Tennant actually a mental patient who made up the whole thing in his mind? Or did this really happen in the past?

[Nicole Diamond · Rating 1 out of 5]

If it has one star I liked it a lot
If it has two stars I liked it a lot and would recommend it
If it has three stars I really really liked it a lot
If it has four stars I insist you read it
If it has five stars it was life changing

[Jeff Dickison · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is just a horrible book, ruined by a terrible ending that leaves the main character where he was at the beginning of the book. What was the purpose? Maybe to show that life sometimes sucks? This book sure does. Don't waste your time.

[Amy Sheldon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Something about this book that was just annoying - very short book, but still a lot of repetitious words/paragraphs, which made the book feel very long and tedious. None of the characters particularly sympathetic. I've enjoyed other Campbell Armstrong books, but not this one.

[Si · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this many years ago and loved it. I have just read it again and it is still one of the best books I have ever read. very true to life.