The Outsider, by Stephen King, is supernatural suspense thriller that shows how evil can have many faces… maybe even yours!
Set in the small-town of Flint City, Ohio an eleven-year-old boy is found murdered and has been violated in the most brutal of ways. The case should be very simple as there is a variety of eye witnesses, plenty of DNA evidence and fingerprints, which all leads to the arrest of the town’s very popular Little League coach.
Detective Ralph Anderson is so horrified by the murder, especially as Coach Maitland coached his own son, he rushes the arrest and orders that he be taken into custody straightaway. This leads to a very public arrest at a baseball game. And the start of a very big problem in the case.
The problem is, despite all the evidence stacking up against him, Maitland has an airtight alibi that puts him seventy miles away at the time of the killing. But how could be possibly be in two places at once?
With this simple, ironclad case going extremely wrong, Holly Gibney from Finders Keepers (from the Bill Hodges trilogy) is brought in to investigate just one aspect of the case but soon discovers some shocking information that is about to make the case very dangerous indeed.
Overall, Stephen King’s switch from horror to crime thrillers has worked very well (at least in my opinion anyway). The Outsider is a great story filled with suspense, thrills and the supernatural.
I thought the first 100 pages or so where quite tame and sometimes slow going, as the story progressed it soon picked up the pace and at a whirlwind pace.
There is quite an eclectic mix of characters and it was great to include Holly Gibney (Mr Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch), she definitely livens up the story as she is a great character and I don’t think this book would have worked quite as well without her.
The Outsider is a story of good vs evil but with the added components of scepticism and believing the “facts” that fit your theory!
A very enjoyable read. Stephen King is still the master of suspense and horror.
Rating: 4.5/5
RRP: £20 (Hardback) / £9.99 (Kindle)
Available to buy from Amazon here.
