A young boy is violated and murdered in the most horrific manner, and all the DNA, eyewitness and fingerprint evidence points to the culprit being much loved sports coach Terry Maitland. But Terry has a rock solid alibi. Detective Ralph Anderson is tasked with finding out the truth behind the matter, but one huge question confounds him at every turn – how can one man be in two places at exactly the same time?
As always with Stephen King (especially his more recent books), this novel is compulsively readable and hard to put down. The first part reads more like a straightforward murder mystery, but things take an even darker turn in the second half when evil forces outside of our realm come into play.
King has a knack for making his stories flow, and also for creating a ripple effect – the horrendous crime committed in the book is shown to affect those not in it’s direct trajectory, and has a knock-on effect upon the people living in the town, who are shocked that such a despicable person could live in their midst.
This does feature characters from the Mr Mercedes trilogy, which I have not read, but you certainly don’t need to have read those to enjoy this. The socially awkward investigator Holly is one of my favourite characters from this story, as well as police officer Yune Sablo, but all of the characters are distinctive and well drawn.
This novel has very much got Stephen King’s stamp on it, so if you like previous books of his, I would certainly recommend this one too.
Between the Pages 
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