King, Stephen

A novice newspaperwoman gains insight into the nature of mystery itself when her journalism mentors tell her about a 25-year-old unsolved investigation involving a man found dead on an island off the coast of Maine.

Composed of five, interconnected, sequential narratives, set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.

A summer resort comes chillingly to life in the off-season when the Torrances arrive to take over as winter caretakers.

At Cold Mountain Penitentiary John Coffey awaits death for raping and murdering two young girls.

"In the middle of the night . . . in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis's parents and load him into a black SUV . . . Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents--telekinesis and telepathy--who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, 'like the roachmotel,' Kalisha says. 'You check in, but you don't check out.' In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don't, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute"--Provided by publisher.

In 1985, six men and one woman are called back to Derry, Maine search for a creature of unspeakable evil that had stalked them as children.

"When Billy Summers was twelve years old, He shot and killed his mother's boyfriend after he kicked Billy's sister to death. At 17, he enlisted in the army. At 18, he was a sniper in Iraq and involved in the deadly battle to recapture Fallujah. For nearly twenty years, he's worked as a paid assassin. He's a good guy in a bad job, and he wants out. He takes on a very complicated, very lucrative job that he hopes will be his last. He's got a perfect new identity lined up and a scrupulously orchestrated, flawless escape plan. And then something happens that changes everything for Billy. A stranger needs rescuing, and Billy sacrifices the safety of his own perfectly devised new life to offer her protection. And then the two of them-the most compelling and surprising duo in King fiction-set out on one last mission, to rectify the injustices of one extraordinarily evil man"--Provided by publisher.

Part two of Stephen King's six installment novel about a group of prisoners awaiting execution at Cold Mountain Penitentiary in 1932, told from the point of view of the superintendent of cell block E.

"After surviving fourteen years of hell in a violently abusive marriage, Rosie Daniels has finally summoned the courage to flee for her life. But leaving her husband Norman for a new city and a new start is a very daunting prospect. It's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with good reason--Norman's a police officer with the instincts of a predator, a force of relentless terror and savagery...a man almost mythic in his monstrosity. He's very good at finding people, even if he is losing his mind. Rosie's only hope for salvation may lie in a far more dangerous place, where she must become her own myth and the woman she never knew she could be"--Back cover.