The Last Voice They Hear [Hardcover]

Ramsey Campbell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1998

"An original, well-written, and often demanding novel". -- Library Journal on Nazareth Hill

"A visceral finale that will startle even the most jaded. Sympathetic characters whose actions blur the boundaries between good and evil... contribute to the novel's complexity". -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Nazareth Hill

"Shocking surprises, alarming horrors, and believable characters -- all expertly blended in a fresh, deft shocker". -- Kirkus Reviews on Nazareth Hill

In The Last Voice They Hear, Campbell continues to focus on the family, as he did in The One Safe Place and Nazareth Hill. For Campbell, the family can be a repository of great strength -- but it can also be the source of nightmare.

Geoff is a happily married man with a successful career as an investigative journalist and a new book to promote. He's in the middle of a publicity tour when his past comes back with a vengeance. A long-missing but never forgotten voice comes out of the phone, and Geoff is suddenly caught up in the most important investigation of his life.

Someone is killing happily married couples in the Windsor area, selecting them carefully, looking for the right combination of age and attitude, the right sort of family ties.

That someone just might be Geoff's brother Ben.

"Ramsey Campbell is highly regarded for his sensitive use of the language and his ability to create psychologically complex characters". -- Dean Koontz

"Menace has always been his keynote ... His fiction (is) felt and experienced, and affect(s) the reader for days afterward". -- Peter Straub

"Beautiful and terrifying ... Campbell is a powerful, original writer, and you owe it to yourself to make his acquaintance". --Washington Post Book World

"Gripping. The climax is stunningly written. Nazareth Hill (is) a superb example of successful disturbing fiction". -- Book Page

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Compared to Campbell's extraordinary horror novel, Nazareth Hill, his new suspense thriller is disappointingly ordinary. Reprising the theme that has dominated his writing for the past decade, Campbell once again contemplates the dismal consequences of the breakdown of the family. The happy married life of young father and investigative reporter Geoff Davenport is shattered when his unbalanced, resentful, long-lost stepbrother, Ben, kidnaps Geoff's three-year-old son. Ben still blames Geoff for the parental abandonment he suffered after his sibling's birth. Incited by Geoff's recent TV documentary on a negligent home for children, Ben has embarked on a crime spree that culminates in the kidnapping. The plot unfolds without complication as a simple cat-and-mouse game in which Ben lures Geoff to an inevitable confrontation through clues keyed to shared childhood experiences. It is the novel's conceit that Geoff's family fails to recognize Ben's identity, but readers will guess easily which peripheral character in the Davenports' social circle to suspect. Although Campbell provides moments of tension that rival his most chilling terrors (including a riveting finale), these are just tentative shocks in an otherwise slack crime drama. It's a tribute to his precise characters and dialogue that this predictable story still compels attention, yet one senses Campbell is just marking time before his next horror opus.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

British psychothriller in the vein of Campbell's The Count of Eleven (1992) and Nazareth Hill (1997), with none of his more familiar occult horror and supernatural trimmings. Some nut is killing the happily marrieds around Windsor--perhaps someone insanely jealous of their joys, and clearly someone who has a way of tapping into their home life. Could it be the bland but persistent cab driver who seems unnaturally interested in the private lives of his fares? Or another of the eccentrics on the periphery of the community? The theme of endangered families allows Campbell to display one of his most delectable gifts: writing affectionately about marriage and children while unsettling the reader with subtle suggestions of imminent disaster. Here, he focuses on Geoff and Gail Davenport and their three-year-old son Paul. Geoff, an investigative TV journalist, has just published an expos of mismanaged children's homes when he begins receiving heavy-breathing wordless phone calls. He suspects that the figure on the other end is his long-vanished older half-brother Ben, a suspicion he reluctantly shares with Gail, who until now had not known of Bens existence. Vastly abused as a child, Ben ran off at 18 rather than enter the family firm, and he hasn't been seen since. Now, Geoff suspects, Ben wants to revive their childhood game of hide-and-seek; this time out, the clues include a letter left under the bedroom rug of a house they were raised in. Geoff resists Ben's attempts to get him to play, but Ben, of course, isnt just playinghas in fact become a serial killer. As his crimes pile up, he earns the moniker The Kissing Bandit for the ingenious and gruesome way in which he murders couples. One knows far ahead that Ben's big moment will come with his kidnap of baby Paul. Ghoulish? You bet, though clever Ben isn't as fearsome as the savagely moronic Fancy family of Campbells 1996 novel, The One Safe Place. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Forge; 1st edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312866119
• ISBN-13: 978-0312866112
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,483,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cambell is at the top of his game, April 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Voice They Hear (Hardcover)

Investigative reporter Geoff Davenport is happy with both his personal and professional lives. He loves his wife and his job. He is currently on an enjoyable publicity tour of Britain, trying to sell his newly released book. For Geoff, life is good.

However, one phone call in the middle of the night abruptly turns everything upside down for Geoff. The voice on the other end apparently is his brother Ben, who accuses Geoff of letting it happen.

At about the same time, a serial killer is murdering happily married couples. Goeff thinks the culprit is Ben. He decides to investigate the killings in an effort to stop them in case it is a family affair.

Ramsey Campbell has a richly deserved reputation for his quality novels outlining the strengths and weaknesses of families (see ONE SAFE PLACE and NAZARETH HILL). His latest book, THE LAST VOICE THEY HEAR, is a brilliant thriller that emphasizes the down side of familial rellationships. Geoff is a wonderful amateur sleuth, and his investigation and fears ring true. Mr. Campbell has written a shocker that is most people's worst nightmare.

.Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning piece of suspense horror from the master, April 20, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Stockport, U.K.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Voice They Hear (Hardcover)

I read an advanced proof of this book and can tell you it is Campbell at the top of his form. Geoff Davenport is a successful investigative journalist working on a high profile TV series. His wife works in TV too, and they have a young son, Paul. Someone has been quietly killing couples in the Windsor area for a number of years but the police have no leads. A telephone call taken by Geoff on a publicity tour brings his childhood roaring back to haunt him. And the killer might be a part of that past, Geoff's half brother Ben. Campbell has here written an intense and emotional thriller with enough suspense to keep us turning the pages long after lights out. The climax of the book is one of the most tense I have ever read and did my fingernails no favours at all! Highly, highly recommended.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Super Suspense!, January 13, 2002

By 

sweetmolly (RICHMOND, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Voice They Hear (Mass Market Paperback)

Ramsey Campbell's specialty is families: some good, beautiful, and loving; some cold, terrifying, and detestable. He doesn't allow any faceless victims; you know them all too well and suffer accordingly.

Geoffrey Davenport is a moderately famous investigative TV journalist who appears to have it all: an attractive business-partner wife and a delightful four-year old son. For no particularly good reason that I can see, Geoff chooses to keep a big chunk of his life a secret-his older half-brother Ben who he has not seen or heard from since Ben left home for good at age 18.

Geoff begins getting anonymous phone calls that he fears are from Ben. He gradually comes to realize that Ben is a serial killer who claims Geoff can stop the killing if he wins a tortuous "game" of clues, a surreal Treasure Hunt. Unfortunately, for the reader's peace of mind, we get to know Ben and have a certain amount of sympathy for him. The parents loved, cosseted, and supported Geoff; yet treated Ben with Dickensonian cruelty. As the "game" continues, Geoff realizes the danger is coming closer and closer to home and the tension and suspense ratchet up accordingly. The finale is slam bang with touches of Dali surrealism, and the imagery is remarkable.

I had a few minor irritations with the book. I think the son's age should have been two at the most, rather than four. Four-year olds use complete sentences and don't toddle. I never could satisfactorily figure out why the parents treated Geoff and Ben so differently. But these were very minor annoyances. The book has beautiful characterizations, concise but perfect. Nothing slows down the pace, ever-increasing dread and tension of the story. For all but the faint-hearted, I highly recommend the book.