The Outsider tells the story of a small town Sheriff trying to solve an impossible murder. The problem is that he knows who the killer is, only the killer has an airtight alibi. The first part of the book spends a lot of time with the man arrested and the man who arrested him. Things are not as clear cut as they at first appear. The monster the Sheriff has to deal with is not the normal human variety, but something different.
There is death and violence and things that go bump in the night. Like all Stephen King books, the characters and settings are rich and vivid. He does go a little overboard here and there in the description of one horror or another, but these are fairly brief. The bulk of the story is getting to know the people who have to deal with the monster. The monster doesn’t get much screen-time.
I listened to the audiobook version of The Outsider read by Will Patton. Will does a good job of giving the many characters a bit of personality. His soft southern drawl works well enough with this story set in Texas and Oklahoma. There was one bit of cognitive dissonance whenever he said the name Mr. Anderson-that name should be retired from all speculative fiction as it brought to mind Agent Smith and Neo every time it was mentioned.
There a couple of odd little moments, such as when someone in Texas mentions watching the 11 o’clock news-it’s the 10 o’clock new in these parts. He also has a couple of fairly young characters talk about the death of John Lennon, a pivotal moment to be sure for those of us of a certain age, but not a blip on the radio for the younger set. I’m not suggesting that Stephen make all his heroes seventy years old, but he might want to run a few things by someone closer to the age of the people who inhabit his books.
Nitpicking aside, I liked The Outsider. It’s not his best work, but it was good.
