by Stephen King
First published 2018
Detective Ralph Anderson stares at an eleven-year-old boy's mutilated body in a Flint City park. The evidence points to Terry Maitland, a beloved Little League coach and English teacher who once coached Anderson's own son. Eyewitnesses saw Maitland at the scene. His fingerprints cover the crime scene. The DNA matches perfectly. Anderson orders a public arrest, confident in his ironclad case. But Maitland claims he was seventy miles away at a teaching conference, and he has footage to prove it. How can a man be in two places simultaneously? As Anderson digs deeper, the investigation spirals into territory that challenges everything he believes about reality. The case expands beyond normal police work into something far more sinister. King builds relentless tension as the impossible evidence mounts and the true nature of the threat emerges. At its core, this story explores how evil can wear the most trusted faces.
Genres: mystery, crime, detective, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: false-accusation, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Flint City
Period: contemporary
561 pages · Hardcover · Scribner
Content warnings: violence