Creatures of the Pool [hc] [Hardcover]

Ramsey Campbell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2009

When his father disappears, Gavin Meadows's search uncovers a race of semihuman beings that have existed in, and under, the city for centuries.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British author Campbell (The House on Nazareth Hill) uses his native Liverpool as the setting for this unnerving suspense novel with supernatural overtones. One day, while Gavin Meadows of Liverghoul Tours is guiding a group around the city, his eccentric father, Deryck, disrupts the tour. When Deryck later goes missing and the police show little interest, Gavin undertakes to track Deryck down himself, bolstered by text messages indicating that his father is still alive, somewhere. Gavin's relations with the official force further deteriorate after he reports seeing a body that vanishes before the cops show up. Various characters explore the theory that Liverpool merchant James Maybrick was actually Jack the Ripper, but this concern with crimes committed in London never fuses satisfactorily with the main story line, which suggests that a hidden truth lies behind Liverpool's myths and legends. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

While Liverpool is understandably best known for the Beatles, horror fans revere the British seaport as the hometown of Peter Atkins, Clive Barker, and, most prolific of them all, Ramsey Campbell. For his latest novel, Campbell explores some stranger features of Liverpool’s background in a pleasurably unsettling fusion of fiction and history. Gavin Meadows gives eclectic and occasionally tiresome—especially for disruptive American tourists—guided excursions highlighting Liverpool’s arcane, watery history. During a summer of heavy rains and a renaissance of city construction, Gavin’s research into Liverpool’s underground tunnels begins to reveal some surprising and unnerving information. An excavation for an office-building foundation, for instance, unearths coffins lined with lead, and postal workers become loath to use a tunnel linked to Lime Street Station. The most disturbing revelation, however, is that underground construction workers are hearing someone running ahead of them in the dark where no one or no thing should live. Another gem from one of the genre’s finest stylists. --Carl Hays

Product Details

• Hardcover: 327 pages
• Publisher: PS Publishing; First edition (December 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1848630417
• ISBN-13: 978-1848630413
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,273,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)