Review: Stephen King's The Outsider

I just finished reading Stephen King’s The Outsider, the latest novel in a line of heart-stopping thrillers from the master of horror. This book only came out a few short weeks ago and I was lucky enough to get ahold of a copy. Although this isn’t my favorite King novel, the story’s setup is masterful and I found myself captivated by main character Terry Maitland’s dilemma of mistaken identity and small-town injustice. When Coach Maitland is suddenly arrested for the murder of a young boy—one of the former members of his tight-knit baseball team—the entire community is outraged. After all, baseball is a big deal in Flint City and Maitland is well-loved, something of a local legend. But as the case builds against Maitland, the townspeople begin to turn on him.

Told from Detective Ralph Anderson’s point of view, the story progresses rapidly. Anderson is a decent guy, friends with Maitland and his wife, but the numerous eyewitnesses are too convincing to ignore. When DNA and fingerprint evidence clearly points to Maitland, even Anderson feels vindicated by the very public arrest made at the ball field in front of nearly sixteen hundred fans. It would seem to be an open-and-shut case.

The twist comes when Maitland’s side of the story comes out. His alibi is ironclad. As Detective Anderson begins to flounder with new doubts about the case, the wheels of justice have already begun to turn. Maitland stews in jail, his reputation growing more tarnished by the hour, unable to defend himself against the powerful evidence. The district attorney is out for blood. Maitland’s wife can’t even leave the house without incurring the wrath of her neighbors and harassment by the press.

And that’s when things really heat up.

In true King fashion, the second half of the book takes on a supernatural twist that grows darker by the page. A sinister entity moves through the town, taking what it wants, playing mind games with the citizens of Flint City. Anderson and Maitland—along with the few others they’ve convinced—risk their careers, and ultimately their lives, to investigate the evil that lurks in the town’s darkest corners. The last few chapters proceed at breakneck speed, hurtling the reader to a highly satisfying conclusion.

Stephen King has always been one of my favorite authors, and this book definitely delivers. The characters he develops are fully fleshed-out and sympathetic, even the bad ones. His plots are intricately woven and masterfully conveyed. Despite the “horror” label most of his books garner, they’re not only about blood and gore. If that was the case, he wouldn’t have such a loyal base of readers. King seems to have hit upon a winning formula for success: he woos us gently at first, building the tension bit by tiny bit. The worlds he creates are vividly real. The protagonists are complex, likeable, and more than a little bit flawed. Silently we root for them. Then, when the really bad stuff finally happens--which it always does-- we're fully on board, one-hundred percent, biting our nails down to the nubs and staying up long past midnight to reach our destination: the final page. And when we do, it’s always with more than a tinge of regret that the ride is over so soon.