Something had to be done about them before they took over completely” read like political slogans). (where Horridge-isms like “Homosexuals must be close as Jews, protecting one another from normal people. His homophobia may be vile, but it’s sadly not all that uncommon, particularly here in the U.S. He is, after all, trying to do the right thing and catch the killer he believes is in his midst.
The surprise is that John Horridge’s transformation from paranoid introvert to cold blooded killer, while not at all unlikely, is nonetheless surprising and even tragic. You can probably guess where the narrative is heading. When his calls don’t have the desired effect, Horridge gains access to Craig’s building-with a fateful razor in hand.
Ferreting out Craig’s address and phone number with Cathy’s unwitting assistance, Horridge makes a series of threatening phone calls. The latter lives in an apartment together with Peter and Cathy, a young couple admittedly based on the author and his wife she’s a sweet and responsible librarian and he a comic book-obsessed, drug-addled asshole.
As seen through Horridge’s obsessive gaze, Liverpool is “an enormous square of desolation, surrounded by derelict houses that looked shrunken by waste” where “A sky the color of watered milk glared through the latticework of their stripped roofs.” Such gritty yet hallucinatory prose is a Campbell trademark, and arguably utilized to its greatest effect in THE FACE THAT MUST DIE.Īs the book opens Horridge learns of a series of killings that he becomes convinced are the work of Roy Craig, a local gay man. It’s the story of John Horridge, a severely paranoid and homophobic lout based in Ramsey Campbell’s hometown of Liverpool. It was Campbell’s second novel, and may well be his crowning achievement, an unremittingly beak, disturbing and disorienting masterpiece that fully retains its power to shock and confound. Ramsey Campbell’s THE FACE THAT MUST DIE is one of the most powerful serial killer novels ever written.
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