Best In Show

August 18, 2003
This is Agatha and Macavity nominee Berenson's 10th charming canine cozy (after 2002's Hot Dog) to feature Melanie Travis, the poodle breeder and devoted "mom" to black Standards Faith and Eve. Melanie leaves her seven-year-old son, Davey, and dog, Faith, with her ex-husband while she travels with Eve to the Poodle Club of America National Specialty dog show in Maryland. Melanie's Aunt Peg, who runs the show, directs her to work with two eccentric sisters from Georgia who look alike, dress alike and finish each other's sentences "like a pair of bickering bookends." When one of them falls on a hotel porch and is fatally injured, it looks like an accident—at first. For all the engaging human characters, including dog handlers, breeders, show officials, trimmers and owners, the dogs, in all sizes, colors and ages, provide the most fun. Carried along by crisp dialogue, the story occasionally bogs down in "doggy" details, but even the uninitiated should find these interesting and informative. The arrival of Melanie's "almost fiancé" at the end will leave readers hoping that the two will set up dog breeding together by the next book. (Sept. 2)Forecast:With 15 champions to her credit, the author breeds and exhibits Standard and Miniature poodles, doing her own grooming, trimming and handling. Confusion with the 2000 film comedy of the same title can't hurt.

Starred review from March 14, 2005
Readers will hesitate to visit their favorite chain bookstore after finishing this horror tour de force from British author Campbell (The Darkest Part of the Woods
). Texts, an American bookseller, has just opened its first U.K. outlet in newly built Fenny Meadows retail park, and manager Woody Blake is struggling to whip the store into shape, despite such perplexing setbacks as computers spitting out flyers with embarrassing typos and books nightly disarranging themselves on the shelves and oozing grubby residues. You might think that something from the boggy terrain was corrupting the store environment—and indeed that's what a local author suggests when he recounts the site's ancient history of draining itself,
then swallowing up villages built on it. The stage is set for shocking revelations when Woody calls for a work all-nighter and the staff finally see what's patronizing their store after hours. Eldritch horrors are Campbell's forte, and he does a brilliant job of insinuating them into the modern work environment through computers, cell phones and security cameras whose apparent malfunction is an index to the indescribable forces they channel. His rich and evocative prose serves, like the Fenny Meadows fog, to wrap scenes in a dense miasma of disturbing images and shadowy shapes. Nearly plotless, this novel is one of his most sustained exercises in atmosphere and a high water mark of horror. Agent, Kay McCauley. (Apr. 1)

FYI:
Campbell has won more than 20 World Fantasy, British Fantasy, Bram Stoker and other major awards.