Product Description

Clay Blaisdell is one big mother, but his capers are strictly small-time until his mentor introduces him to the one big score that every small-timer dreams of: kidnap. But now the brains of the operation has died - or has he? - and Blaze is alone with a baby as hostage. The Crime of the Century just turned into a race against time in the white hell of the Maine woods.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83181 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-12
• Released on: 2007-06-12
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Review
'Storytelling - the ability to make the listener or the reader need to know, demand to know, what happens next - is a gift. Stephen King, like Charles Dickens before him, has this gift in spades' (The Times on CELL )

‘Thrilling, genuinely terrifying, beautifully textured and full of wonderful invention’

(Daily Mail on LISEY'S STORY )

'A consummate and compassionate novel – one of King’s very best'

(Guardian on LISEY'S STORY )

Synopsis
Clay Blaisdell is one big mother, but his capers are strictly small-time until his mentor introduces him to the one big score that every small-timer dreams of: kidnap. But now the brains of the operation has died - or has he? - and Blaze is alone with a baby as hostage. The crime of the century just turned into a race against time in the white hell of the Maine woods.

About the Author
In his 'lifetime', Richard Bachman published five novels. A sixth, THE REGULATORS, was published after he died of pseudonym cancer (a relatively painless way to go) in 1985. He developed a cult following both before and after his death. Two of his novels (THINNER and THE RUNNING MAN) were made into motion pictures. This novel—both brutal and sensitive—is his final legacy. The last of the Bachman novels, written in 1973 and published for the first time. Stephen King’s 'dark half' may have saved the best for last.

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Customer Reviews

Good book!
This was an interesting book that spiralled from a friendly giant who was abused as a child.

Lots of good twists, I'd recommend it to anyone!

Interesting early novella
Over the last few years King's fiction has been tainted by a desire to overwrite and produce large books that could've been written in half the pages (Lisey's Story being the worst of these!). Refreshing, then, for this so-called "trunk" novel to finally make an appearance in print. Written between his first two pubished novels "Carrie" and "Salem's Lot", it is a tightly written novella, reminiscent both of the real-life kidnap of the aviator Charles A Lindbergh's baby in the 1930s and Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men". King has written in two main styles - the horror for which he is justly famous, the best of these being "Salem's Lot" "The Shining" and "The Stand", and a more conventional but hard-boiled style - the best of these being the Bachman books - particularly "Rage" and "The Long Walk" (I would highly recommend the latter) and the novellas contained in "Different Seasons", plus wider known books like "Misery".
I would suggest the above are much better books than this novella. It is a good read and it will be fascinating for King aficionados looking at the early progression of his works, but there are two fundamental flaws in this book which may have been the reason why it wasn't published in the first place. First, the ending is very predictable and inevitable so the reader is never surprised. Second, having spent so much of the book expertly charting the character of Blaze as a retarded man (with great use of flasbacks to his abusive childhood) it seems very implausible that such a man could be able to take care of a young baby.
These flaws aside, it is still an intersting read, well worth the effort if you're widely read in King. If new to this author, the above novels mentioned would be a better starting place.
If you like this review, why not buy my own novel on amazon "Freya's Quest" by Julian Lawrence Brooks

All round winner!
Great characters, great story, and a proper ending (unlike Cell). This is the Stephen King I grew up with and love. The complex stories are interesting but this is more like it.