King novel showcases his power

Does anybody write kids-withstrange-powers better than Stephen King? And, is there anyone on the scene who has more insider knowledge of the publishing industry? “Later,” King’s third Hard Case Crime installment, threads both of these into a single short novel that packs a punch.

Jamie is a kid who can see dead people, and his single mom is a literary agent willing to do whatever she has to in order to keep bread on the table, never mind the literary ethics.

As Jamie reminds us throughout, “this is a horror story,” and horror stories are about trying to get out alive, with as many shreds of your soul as you can steal back from the darkness. As Jamie quickly finds out, convincing those around him that he can see dead people is an invitation for them to make use of that ability, and this is where King has always excelled. His premises and situations extend themselves in your head just when you hear them sketched out, don’t they?

This is King’s special power. We’re already participants just from hearing the setup.

And, as in “The Dead Zone,” where those special powers are triggered by touch, the dead people in “Later” are similarly “bound” by a small set of rules that feel common-sense. Over the course of the novel, these rules will provide the jump-scares, ticking clocks and emotional reveals.

King’s writing in “Later” is as clean, direct and evocative as it’s ever been. The short, to-thepoint chapters make for quick reading, the crime-driven plot is propulsive, involving guns, drugs, bombs and kidnapping, but, more importantly, some of the lines just take your breath away. Skin “pebbles” with goose bumps. A dead person confronting Jamie is “like a burned log with fire still inside.” But crawling into the head and voice and life of this kid narrator is where King especially excels.

By the novel’s end, Jamie will have grown up, but, like King himself, he won’t have left behind who he used to be. It’ll take you maybe one afternoon to read this book, but it’ll resonate longer. The next time you see a dog look twice at a bench, or watch a baby cry for no obvious reason, this novel will be right there behind you, its hand on your shoulder, its whisper so close to your ear you might cringe a little, and then smile, because you’re in the hands of a master storyteller.