Synopses & Reviews
On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues, and it's more than a year before the man is identified.
And that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still...?
No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world's great storytellers presents a moving and surprising tale whose subject is nothing less than the nature of mystery itself...
Review
"[P]owerful storytelling. King appears to be fumbling in his tackle box when, in fact, he's already slipped the hook into our cheeks and is pulling us inexorably toward the bemusing, maddening...final page." Booklist
Review
"Although the book may not wholly satisfy horror fans or follow the beaten path of pulp crime novels...[it] will speak to those who appreciate good storytelling....Quintessential King." Library Journal
Review
"The Colorado Kid is an odd book. It has only three characters who matter, or four if you count the dead man....King rejects convention. He stretches the mystery out to novel-length, by endless padding, and offers no solution." Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post
Review
"Like Christine, the deranged car from one of his best-known novels, King seems incapable of slowing down. The latest evidence? The Colorado Kid, a taut tale filled with engaging characters and old-school suspense. It eschews trademark gore in favor of enchanting meditations on unsolved crimes and unresolved stories. (Grade: B+)" Christian Science Monitor
About the Author
Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. He made his first professional short story sale in 1967 to Startling Mystery Stories. In the fall of 1973, he began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels. In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co., accepted the novel
Carrie for publication, providing him the means to leave teaching and write full-time. He has since published over 40 books and has become one of the world's most successful writers.
Stephen lives in Maine and Florida with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. They are regular contributors to a number of charities, including many libraries, and have been honored locally for their philanthropic activities.