Stephen King’s ‘The Outsider’ echoes his other works but still satisfies
It begins as so many thrillers do, with a murder. A young boy’s body is found in Flint City, Okla., and all evidence points to one man: the beloved local Little League coach. Of course, this being Stephen King’s newest novel, “The Outsider,” all is not as it seems, for both the residents of Flint City and readers alike. Visceral yet thoughtful, “The Outsider” is a tense hybrid of mystery and horror that asks, as many of Mr. King’s best works do, “What if the boogeyman is real?”
When Frank Peterson’s body is recovered, every eyewitness agrees the killer is Terry Maitland, a longtime Flint City resident with a wife and two children of his own. The detective on the case, Ralph Anderson, publicly arrests Terry as quickly as possible, due to the avalanche of proof and the horrifying nature of the murder.
Terry maintains his innocence, which initially falls on deaf ears. Once his lawyer begins assembling his defense, however, the police discover that his alibi checks out. As Detective Anderson agonizes over the impossibility of conflicting facts, another shocking murder occurs, and it becomes clear that Terry’s case is only the beginning of an investigation into something ancient and terrifying, with a limitless hunger. Soon enough, as events spiral out of control, Detective Anderson realizes that what he considers to be incontrovertible truths are actually just beliefs — and those beliefs are beginning to fray at the edges.
“The Outsider,” at least from its outset, bears a strong resemblance to the mysteries of the Bill Hodges trilogy (2014’s “Mr. Mercedes,” 2015’s “Finders Keepers” and 2016’s “End of Watch”). Detective Anderson’s faith in thorough investigations is a clear echo of Bill Hodges, and his colleagues are barely an arm’s length away from the little detective agency created in the earlier trilogy.
While fans of the Hodges books will certainly find a lot to love about “The Outsider,” there’s enough here to satisfy readers looking for something a little spookier. What starts as an openand-shut murder case evolves into a classic Stephen King scarefest as the investigators find themselves on the hunt for an inhuman creature that feeds on pain, fear and grief.
Once the trappings of the detective novel are stripped away, what remains is an achingly realistic look at grief. Everyone involved with Terry Maitland’s story is touched by loss in some way, and Mr. King’s talent for distilling overwhelming emotions into straightforward prose shines here: “Time had passed, and time probably did heal all wounds, but God, some of them healed so slowly.”
The obliterating nature of grief, and how difficult and paralyzing it can be to confront, is a theme that the author has returned to many times over the decades of his career: the impossibility of wrapping one’s mind around the impossible. Jack Torrance of “The Shining,” Louis Creed of “Pet Sematary,” the friends from “IT” — all of these characters struggle to process the horrors they encounter, and, often, continued disbelief leads to a tragic ending. Detective Anderson is the latest representation of that theme, and it works well here, because his disbelief will undoubtedly echo that of the reader’s. The result is a sidelong wink at the audience, as if the author himself is saying, “Crazy, right?”
“The Outsider” contains all the hallmarks of classic Stephen King: a horrifying villain, breakneck
pacing and exquisitely developed characters. The book is also connected to the author’s overarching universe — a conceit that dates back to his earliest novels as he establishes a pattern of evil (usually based around a fictionalized version of his home state, Maine) that confounds and terrorizes his characters.
There is a drawback, though: The book feels somewhat like a retread of some of his other books. In particular, its focus on an investigation that turns supernatural shares a lot of DNA with “End of Watch,” and with that book being released only two years ago, repeating a lot of those plot elements feels a bit self-indulgent. Of course, fans of that book may enjoy the similarity in style, but readers looking for something unique may feel disappointed.
Still, “The Outsider” is a solid entry in Mr. King’s more recent oeuvre, and it’s perfect for summer reading. Don’t expect it to weigh on your mind for too long, but with a new release from Mr. King, “Elevation,” coming in October, maybe it didn’t weigh on his mind for long, either.