"A masterful, intensely suspenseful novel about a reader whose obsession with a reclusive writer goes far too far--a book about the power of storytelling, starring the same trio of unlikely and winning heroes King introduced in Mr. Mercedes" -- ""Wake up, genius." So begins King's instantly riveting story about a vengeful reader. The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn't published a...

In the Old South of the 1930s, when a gentle giant of a man is sentenced to death for the murder and rape of two little girls, the fact that he is black and the girls are white is inflammatory enough, but the situation is further complicated by his near muteness and gift for healing.