Fear Across the Mersey XXIV: Wherever You Look | review by Rafe McGregor

Fear Across the Mersey by Ramsey Campbell

PS Publishing, hardback, £25.00, August 2024, ISBN 9781803943701

Maurice Lavater is a midlist genre fiction writer, with his Victorian supernatural thriller series about to reach its seventh instalment. He is hosting a reading of his work at a library when one of the attendees accuses him of plagiarism. I imagine this is a regular occurrence for those who have achieved commercial success, but what is especially interesting – and authentic – is Lavater’s reaction. After an initial denial, he begins to worry that he read something, forgot about it, and when it came back to him thought it was his own invention. This is, I think, a fear all writers share regardless of the extent of their success. Lavater begins searching for the text he was accused of plagiarising and discovers it is an obscure short story, which was only published once, in a similarly obscure anthology, and never reprinted. When he eventually finds it…I won’t ruin the twist in the tale!