The Grin of the Dark

Once upon a time Tubby Thackeray's silent comedies were hailed as the equal of Chaplin's and Keaton's, but now his name has been deleted from the history of the cinema. Some of his music-hall performances before he went to Hollywood were riotously controversial, and his last film was never released - but why have his entire career and all his films vanished from the record?Simon Lester is a film critic thrown out of a job by a lawsuit against the magazine he helped to found. When he's commissioned to write a book about Thackeray and restore the comedian's reputation, it seems as if his own career is saved. His research takes him from Los Angeles to Amsterdam, from dusty archives to a hardcore movie studio. But his research leads to something far older than the cinema, something that has taken a new and even more dangerous shape...

From the Back Cover

Tubby Thackeray s stage routines were so deranged that members of his audience were said to have died or lost their minds. When Simon Lester is commissioned to write a book about the forgotten music hall clown and his riotous silent comedies, his research plunges him into a nightmarish realm where genius, buffoonery and madness converge. In a search that leads him from a twilight circus in a London park to a hardcore movie studio in Los Angeles, Simon Lester uncovers a terrifying secret about Tubby Thackeray and must finally confront the unspeakable thing he represents . . . Praise for The Grin of the Dark: "[Ramsey Campbell] has a genius for infusing horror into the everyday, piling up small moments of dread and confusion and fear until they become insurmountable" (Tim Pratt in Locus) "Campbell's most ambitious novel to date . . .extremely disturbing" (Poppy Z Brite)

About the Author

The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Ramsey Campbell as 'Britain’s most respected living horror writer'. He has been awarded the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association. His regular columns appear in All Hallows, Dead Reckonings and Video Watchdog. He is the President of the British Fantasy Society.

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