Prolific horror writer Ramsey Campbell (Ancient Images, The Darkest Part of the Woods et al.) crafts a suffocating atmosphere of paranoia and frustration in Ghosts Know. Graham Wilde is the outspoken host of a radio call-in show in Manchester, England, attracting racists and gullible eccentrics alike. When the station is purchased by a giant corporation, Graham faces pressure to increase ratings by cultivating even more drama. Frank Jasper, a "psychic," is scheduled to perform a live reading on Graham's show, and he's determined to expose Jasper as a charlatan on air--but their clash leaves Graham with a public relations-savvy enemy. When the family of a missing girl hires Jasper, the psychic produces a trail of circumstantial evidence implicating Graham in the girl's disappearance.
Ghosts Know revels in its uncertainty about Jasper's abilities and Graham's potential connection with the missing girl. It seems obvious at first that Graham is both innocent of all involvement and correct in his dismissal of Jasper. Campbell plants seeds of doubt, however, first in Graham's listening audience and then in the novel's readers. As the public and even his closest companions turn against Graham, Ghosts Know becomes an extraordinary example of what a skillful writer can accomplish with an unreliable narrator. Graham is either supremely unlucky or withholding a terrible secret--a mystery that will keep readers guessing right up to the eye-opening climax. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer