 Flame Tree Press rerelease the first book in Ramsey Campbell’s excellent ‘Daoloth’ Trilogy Since teaming up with Flame Tree Press several novels ago has been on a rich vein of form and 2021 sees the welcome rerelease of The Searching Dead which was first published in 2016. The original was a limited-edition PS Publishing hardback which heralded two sequels Born of the Dark (2017) and The Way of the Worm (2018) in a series which was critically acclaimed and generally known as Three Births of Daoloth. This is not the first time Flame Tree Press have dipped into Campbell’s outstanding back-catalogue, also recently rereleasing The Influence, and over the next couple of years the trilogy will be available on Kindle and ebook for the first time. Wracking my brains, and coming up with zero, I am wondering how often Campbell writes fiction where the central characters are children? Not very often. Interestingly, for much of The Searching Dead the supernatural is entirely absent with the reader instead being convincingly time-warped back to 1950s Liverpool, where it is easy to forget that you are immersed within the pages of a horror novel. This setting is beautifully convincing, from the bus rides, to the cinema visits and atmospheric recreations of the school classrooms. Liverpool still lives in the shadow of the war, with bombed streets and children still asking adults and teachers ‘what did you do in the war?’ The story is narrated in the first person by Dominic Sheldrake who is about to start secondary school, making his parents proud by winning a place at the local Catholic grammar school. He is a bright boy, with a vivid imagination and there is undoubtedly a touch of Ramsey Campbell within him. He is a child who loves writing stories and is dismayed when one of his new teachers cruelly tells him one of his creations is rubbish after he is encouraged to put it forward for the school magazine. In this strict Catholic school, any form of ‘modern’ literature or other forward thinking cultural symbols is frowned upon by the strict teachers or ‘Brothers’ (priests). The scenes in the school really crackled with life and atmosphere and there was a particularly great scene when the headmaster tears a strip from Dominic for reading Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, only for another teacher to defend his taste in literature! However, strict the school may be, Dominic still takes a liking to his new tutor, Mr Noble, who encourages him with his writing and to think for himself. I enjoyed the many other literary references, Alisteir Crowley gets a mention in passing, and at a certain point Dominic discovers Dennis Wheatley (now a largely forgotten horror writer), who is presented as one of the great ‘Occultists’ of his day! The hustling and bustling school scenes were fantastic and soon Dominic realises that Mr Noble lives close to his own home and knows one of his neighbours, who has been struggling since the death of her husband. Mrs Norris has also been attending a Spiritualist Church and gives the impression that she has been talking to her dead husband, with Mr Noble playing a key role in this ritual. Rather agitated and disorientated Mrs Norris and her descriptions of her church pique the interest of Dominic and he goes snooping where he should not. Although The Searching Dead is narrated from sometime after the events it is soaked with beautifully stated childhood scenes as the three main characters approach their teenage years. Dominic is inseparable from his best friends Jim and tomboy Bobby (Roberta) who goes to a different school. They meet every Saturday to hit the cinemas, with Dominic writing naive adventure stories about the exploits of the ‘Tremendous Three’ which Jim finds faintly embarrassing as Dominic does not even use fake names in his stories. After a school trip to France, in which they visit various battlefields with Mr Noble, the boys become even more suspicious of Mr Noble. Interestingly, it is Dominic who drives this suspicion to the extent that even the children’s parents become involved as there is a deep-rooted suspicion of Spiritualist churches. This was an era where children were expected to obey their parents and ‘nobody was expected to make a fuss’ and the family dynamic were an important aspect of the novel as the kids snooping gets them in deep water. It also turns on its head the idea that the teacher, the ultimate figure of authority, can be challenged or could possibly be very dangerous. Overall, the supernatural was understated, atmospheric and low key, and if it were not for the fact that I know this is developed significantly in Born of the Dark and The Way of the Worm one could have argued it was kept too far in the background. There are no “Boo!” scares or demons rising from the depths of Hell, it is much subtler that that and is in tune with much of Campbell’s recent fiction, which is character driven, focusing on family dynamics and slow creeping dread. However, that is not to say the novel does not have its scares, the interactions between Mrs Norris and her absent husband were great and Dominic being stalked in the foggy streets of Liverpool were also riveting. Long-term fans of Ramsey Campbell will undoubtedly have already read The Searching Dead, but for those of you who have not, it is a fine introduction to his work. If you are dismayed to find out Flame Tree do not intend to rerelease books two and three until 2022 and 2023 you can always track down the much pricier (no ebooks) PS Publishing versions. Tony Jones  “An absolute master of modern horror. And a damn fine writer at that” - Guillermo del Toro 1952. On a school trip to France teenager Dominic Sheldrake begins to suspect his teacher Christian Noble has reasons to be there as secret as they're strange. Meanwhile a widowed neighbour joins a church that puts you in touch with your dead relatives, who prove much harder to get rid of. As Dominic and his friends Roberta and Jim investigate, they can’t suspect how much larger and more terrible the link between these mysteries will become. A monstrous discovery beneath a church only hints at terrors that are poised to engulf the world as the trilogy brings us to the present day… FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.    Comments are closed.
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