I read this book on my honeymoon, in fact, so it will always remind me of that. The Spanish sun, my feet up at the swimming pool, or waiting for the hottest part of the day to pass by in a little Sevilla square with oranges dropping around me... But enough about me. The book.

In "Desperation", several widely different people find their fates joined together as a vastle evil power set loose in the quiet mid-Western US town of Desperation wreaks havoc. An old mining town experiences the re-opening of a mining shaft closed a long time ago. Nobody quite remembers why it was closed, but as it turns out there was a very good reason. An old pagan god gets hold of the foreman, and eventually a cop...that's where the story starts. Various people travelling along the street find themselves arrested by the cop, then thrown in jail. The whole town has already been massacred by then, but for some reason a handful of them remain alive and in jail. Then starts the fight for freedom, which is perhaps dipped into too much or a supernatural flavour. Stephen King's novels often have a bit of a supernatural of plain alien ("Tommyknockers") ingredient, but in "Desperation" there's rather a lot of it. One of the cop's prisoners, a boy, is deeply into God and, in the end, there's a fair amount of miracles and, indeed, 'our' God and the incredibly evil deity set loose from the mines fight it out together.

Despite the overly religious elements (somehow never quite zealous, if you know what I mean, basically "God is cruel" is the message), the book captivates from start to end. The characters are neatly worked out and it becomes increasingly difficult to put the book down as the end closes in and the plot thickens. Not one of King's best books, but a really good one nonetheless.

Released ?, ISBN ?

RK

Written June 1999

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