King class act again

The Outsider

By Stephen King Hodder & Stroughton, $33

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Stephen King and I have an on again, off again relationship.

For example, the trio of thrillers starting with the character Detective Bill Hodges is very much in my on again category. And now you can add The Outsider to the must-read side of the coin.

An 11-year-old boy is found murdered and sodomised. Eyewitnesses tell detective Ralph Anderson that revered Little League Coach Terry Maitland was seen near where the body was found.

Anderson wastes no time, heading to the game and arresting the coach in front of most of the townsfolk and his family.

As the evidence is further examined, there’s irrefutable proof that the coach and fellow teachers were out of town attending a presentation at the precise timing that the boy was killed.

How could he be in two places at once? Well, that’s where Stephen King’s ingenuity comes into the picture.

Finding the truth isn’t something that King gives up lightly and that’s definitely the case with The Outsider.

As this tale slowly but surely reveals itself, King’s journey of discovery is clever and absorbing.

It proves again what a class act King is. —