"Fans of horror will find this must reading"

American based Texts Bookstores opened up a superstore in Fenny Meadows Retail Park in northern England. However, the store has failed to live up to expectations. Yank Woody Blake, who has successfully turned around stores in New Orleans and Minneapolis, is sent to fix the English shop built on the fens.

During closing hours, books jump from shelves even landing in the discard pile and the fen reclaims the store every night leaving inventory wet, oily and yucky. With the suits arriving to inspect his progress, Woody orders an all-nighter to get the store ready. However, he and his employees learn first hand who the anti-bibliophiles are. Slimy blobs come out of the fog that has engulfed Texts Bookstore and the electricity blacks out. The outside doors are locked by some other force with no way to exit and Woody is further sealed in his office that might be his tomb as the store is sinking just like whole villages have vanished here before.

Fans of Ramsey Campbell and anyone who has worked at a bookstore will appreciate this tongue in cheek horror tale that grips the audience the moment readers grasp that this is not just another retail establishment. Woody is a fabulous protagonist who serves as the focal point holding the thriller together (someone has to -- try pinning jello blobs to a wall). He and his staff portray working at a bookstore so well and his transformation from save the store ultra-energy to trapped mouse is cleverly handled as in between he sees all sorts of the nasties occur to his staff. Mindful of Poltergeist but with humor, Mr. Campbell provides a delightful tale that will ironically leap off the bookshelves.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted June 12, 2005

Summary

A bookstore can be a wonderful, welcoming place of both commerce and curiosity. That's the goal for Woody, an American recently transferred to England to run a branch of Texts. He wants a clean, orderly store and lots of sales to show his bosses when they arrive from the States for a pre-Christmas inspection. Not easy given the shop's location in a foggy strip mall. And things keep going wrong. No matter how often the shelves are put in order before the doors are locked at night, when the staff returns in the morning, books are lying all over the floor, many damp and damaged beyond repair. The store's computers keep acting up-errors appear in brochures and ads and orders disappear completely. And even when the machines are turned off, they seem to glow with a spectral gray light. The hit-and-run death of an employee in the store's parking lot marks a turning point. One employee accuses another of making sexual advances and they come to blows. Between one sentence and the next, one loses his ability to read. The security monitors display half-seen things crawling between the stacks that vanish before anyone can find them. Desperate, Woody musters his staff for an overnight inventory. When the last customers reluctantly depart, leaving almost-visible trails of slime shining behind them, the doors are locked, sealing Woody and the others inside for a final orgy of shelving. The damp, grey, silent things that have been lurking in the basement and hiding in the fog may move slowly, but they are inexorable. This bookstore is no haven. It is the doorway to a hell unlike any other.