Silent Children

Ramsey Campbell is brilliant yet again. It a pleasure to read such a strongly written novel. Great plot, richly detailed characters and that overpowering sense of evil that only the very best can emanate from the page. Don't wait too long to read this one.

What if your son "disappeared" but was really, secretly, only a room away, hearing every word you said? That's one of the situations in the book - and it makes for a totally suspenseful and unique tale. Believable characters that I cared about, continuing suspense and twists that I didn't foresee are what kept me glued to the pages of this one. Even the killer has his reasons, however skewed, and he truly believes he is "saving" the children he murders. What I found particularly compelling in this book was the portrait of the teenager, Ian. By the time he and his stepsister disappear, they've become truly compelling characters and the reader cares about what happens to them.

No one loved children as much as Hector Woolie. He hated when he felt a parent neglected or abused a child. However, he loved them so much, he abducted the lambs from their nasty parents, but when they failed to behave he made them perfect by killing them. Almost caught, Hector faked his death by using pliers to yank his teeth to prove he drowned. In reality, Hector simply vanished into the night. Years later, Ian's parents' divorce leaves him shattered and depressed. Hector is Ian's next door neighbor and soon he kidnaps the teenager and his stepsister. His mother is one wall away, but only her sobs penetrate Ian's frightened mind. No author today can take a reader into a worse abyss than Ramsey Campbell does. Mr. Campbell makes the darkest nightmare feel genuine because his characters seem real as they struggle with day to day living even before they end up in a crisis. SILENT CHILDREN is fast-paced and loaded with so much tension that the audience is sent into a panic because they believe that Ian is going to die on the next page and each subsequent page afterward. Mr. Campbell graphically but authentically portrays the worst sins humanity can perform on one another in a true horror tale.