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: #7003 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk
There was a time when admirers of Stephen King would seek out every scrap from the Master’s work bench, and it was a cause for celebration when it was discovered that the writer Richard Bachman was, in fact, a pseudonym for King. There were more King novels available than we had all thought! And it was even more an occasion for celebration when it was discovered just how good these Bachman books were.

With Blaze (issued here with a new foreword by Stephen King), we have one of the most adroit entries in the series. King had written the book in 1973 and it had subsequently vanished from his personal radar as he busied himself writing Carrie and Salem's Lot, two of the books that were to both make his fortune and establish him as the greatest modern master of horror fiction. When Blaze turned up among his papers in the library of the University of Maine, he looked at it again, and (fortunately for King aficionados) sanctioned its publication.

Clay Blaisdell is a hulking 6' 7'' petty criminal who encounters another lowlife with large ambitions: George Rackley has a fund of criminal schemes, but his Big Idea is to kidnap the children of rich parents and hold them to ransom. What ensues is shot through with the masterly orchestration of tension that is Stephen King's métier. If there are some undigested influences here (the two protagonists -- one massive and powerful, the other the brains of the duo -- owe more than a little to George and Lenny in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men), the personality that comes through (leaving aside the Richard Bachman nom-de-plume) is Stephen King, and followers of his work will need no persuasion to pick up this one. --Barry Forshaw

Review

'BLAZE feels like an essential missing piece in King's oeuvre...compelling'

(Independent on Sunday )

'King's brilliance is in making his readers root for the kidnapper rather than the authorities'

(Daily Telegraph )

'Tightly written and compelling'

(Daily Express )

'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 )

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

Classic King
Stephen King's latest novel, 'Blaze' is a book that was apparently lost within King's files. It was published under the name of Richard Bachman and written in 1973 (before all of his other main works).

The story goes through the life of the gentle giant, Clayton Blaisdell (aka Blaze) who, because of being beaten and thrown down the stairs by his father at a young age, is mentally challenged (called a dummy throughout) and is easily led on, which brings him to a life of crime with various petty criminals. One of which named George, who is dead but is also the one who leads Blaze to the kidnapping of a baby in return for the ransom of $1million.

At first this book was pretty hard to get into, but once I had gotten used to it flicking backwards and forwards between Blaze's youth and the present day and the fact that he is talking to and listening to a dead person, I couldn't put the book down and finished it in just three short sittings. Having not read a King book for about 3 or 4 years, it was brilliant to experience King's unique style of writing again and has prompted me to purchase his two latest novels that I missed (Cell & Lisey's Story) which I'm really looking forward to reading now.

This is a tense and exciting book which fans of Stephen King/Richard Bachman should love. It is not a horror story, more of an adventure through Blaze's troubled, unfair and gullable life, mixed with a crime thriller. The heartwarming relationships between Blaze and Johnny (his friend from HH) and Blaze and the kidnapped baby, Joe, will make it impossible for you not to like Blaze's character, despite him being a thief, a kidnapper and a murderer. This is a classic (maybe over-looked) King novel that should be up there with likes of The Green Mile, The Body (Stand by Me) and The Shawshank Redemption, although it does sometimes feel a little like an over-run short story.

A great read!
I managed to read this in 2 sittings. It was quite unputdownable and really easy too. It was also a real page turner.

It tells the story of 6ft 7in Clayton Blaisdell. (The kidnapping story is almost 2nd to his childhood story.) King has once again perfectly captured what it is to be a young, downtrodden youth from nowhere special. You get a real feel for this gentle, (okay so he clobbers a few people and strangles another), giant of a man who just wants to please his dead friend George. Yes that's correct...his DEAD friend George.

His friend has been gone for the last 3 months but Blaze isn't 100% sure he's really gone. If he were, he wouldn't be able to hold whole conversations with him now would he? No, Blaze is convinced that George is still hanging around to take care of things for him.

The whole story is quite a touching one, despite it being about a man kidnapping a poor defenseless baby. It had me wanting him to get away with it and to run away with said baby, but this is a King story...ho hum.

It's definitely worth a read if you're a fan of King but you don't need to be. It's not a horror by any means, more of a film noir book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will probably re-read it at some point. I say give it a go, it's only 291 pages long after all.

Blaze
I absolutely loved this book - read it in two days, could hardly keep my nose out of it! If you are a "constant reader" you will recognise this book as King's earlier work but personally, with an exception or two, I find them the best of all his stuff. Even if you are not a Stephen King fan, you will love this one.