by Stephen King
Part of The Green Mile
First published 1996
Eduard Delacroix sits on death row in Block E at Cold Mountain Penitentiary. He is a convicted murderer waiting to die, and his days follow a grim, predictable routine. Then a small mouse appears. Delacroix adopts it, names it Mr. Jingles, and for the first time in a long time he has something to care about. The guards mostly leave the situation alone. Percy Wetmore does not. Percy is young, mean, and connected to powerful people, which makes him dangerous in ways that go beyond his uniform. He despises the mouse from the moment he sees it, and that hatred becomes a pressure point for everyone on the block. Paul Edgecombe, the guard who runs Block E, has to manage Percy, the inmates, and his own conscience all at once. Into this charged atmosphere arrives John Coffey, a giant of a man condemned for a crime that does not sit right with Paul. The mouse is small. The stakes are not. King builds the tension one shift at a time, until the distance between cruelty and grace feels like the only thing that matters.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, american-fiction, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, gritty, haunting, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, institutional-corruption, moral-conflict, unlikely-bond
Setting: Cold Mountain Penitentiary, Block E
Period: 20th-century
92 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Signet
Content warnings: abuse, death, murder, violence