Dead Zone – The Best King?

I’m going to start with a bold statement. This could be the best book King has written.

I haven’t made my mind up yet. But it could be the best.

The story is a perfectly constructed web of interconnecting stories which come together at the end in a moment of desperation and terror.

Our hero, Johnny, is not the typical King character. No alcoholism or writers’ block to be found. But he is psychic. Following two separate head injuries, Johnny can see your future.

This leads him to save lives in more ways than one and, without spoiling the ending, forces him to make excruciating choices.

I have read a lot of King and this book delivers a tense, thriller style rather than out and out horror. The psychic ability is the only supernatural element and it is a force for good. The evil is all human. And that’s what makes it so good, like Misery, the horror comes from the depraved way humans can behave and the evil acts they are capable of.

Needless to say, I highly recommend this book to fans of horror and dark thrillers. It’s not for the faint of heart (what King is?) but worth it if you have the stomach for it.

Charlotte Wood is a feminist and writer of the macabre and sinister. She reads horror, fantasy, classic literature and historical fiction (with a preference for history from a woman’s perspective).