Print List Price: | $18.99 |
Kindle Price: | $13.99 Save $5.00 (26%) |
Sold by: | Simon and Schuster Digital Sales LLC Price set by seller. |
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
The Outsider: A Novel Kindle Edition
Evil has many faces…maybe even yours in this #1 New York Times bestseller from master storyteller Stephen King.
An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is discovered in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens—Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon have DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.
As the investigation expands and horrifying details begin to emerge, King’s story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherScribner
- Publication dateMay 22, 2018
- File size4793 KB
Customers who bought this item also bought
- ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’Highlighted by 1,561 Kindle readers
- Thought only gives the world an appearance of order to anyone weak enough to be convinced by its show.Highlighted by 1,180 Kindle readers
- Strange, the things you noticed when your day—your life—suddenly went over a cliff you hadn’t even known was there.Highlighted by 1,028 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
Holly | If It Bleeds | Finders Keepers | Mr. Mercedes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Customer Reviews |
4.5 out of 5 stars
30,707
|
4.6 out of 5 stars
34,857
|
4.4 out of 5 stars
38,519
|
4.4 out of 5 stars
46,269
|
Price | $16.19$16.19 | $11.42$11.42 | $14.97$14.97 | $9.99$9.99 |
Don’t miss these novels by Stephen King |
Editorial Reviews
Review
"A juicy tale that plays at the forefront of our current phobias... [The Outsider] will remind readers of King's early novel It."
— Kirkus Reviews
“What begins as a manhunt for an unlikely doppelgänger takes an uncanny turn into the supernatural. King’s skillful use of criminal forensics helps to ground his tale in a believable clinical reality where the horrors stand out in sharp relief.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Absolutely riveting. . . another shockingly dark book—perfect for longtime fans, of whom there are, well, zillions.”
—Booklist
“There’s plenty of shadowy, wormy supernatural goings-on in Stephen King’s new novel The Outsider. Yet the most unsettling stuff — that which will leave you uncomfortable when you sit and devour this first-rate read — probes the monstrous side of human nature.”
—Brian Truitt, USA Today
"Do yourself a favor and read the book.”
—Associated Press
“An It for the Trump era…remarkable and deeply pleasurable.”
—Ryan Vlastelica, The AV Club
"Here’s to mutant rats in the basement and Mexican myths; here’s to the strange and to Stephen King. Still inspiring."
—Victor LaValle, New York Times Book Review
"King is arguably as much an American icon as the ’68 Fastback or a classic red and white Plymouth Fury. All of these glories are on full display in his latest mystery-horror hybrid...you’re in for one hell of a ride.”
—Karin Slaughter, The Washington Post
“King appears to be on a hot streak, that he extends with The Outsider. Big, complex and inventive, it’s a well-honed continuation of his interest in the intersection of crime and horror fiction, demonstrating his consummate skill with both.”
—Michael Berry, The Portland Press Herald
"Every time Stephen King writes another book, I worry. Has he gone to the horror well too often? Will it be as good as It or Dolores Claiborne or Doctor Sleep or any of his 50-plus other titles? Luckily, his scary ideas continue to flow unfettered from his mind to the pages, most recently in The Outsider...masterful.”
—Amanda St. Amand, St. Louis Post Dispatch
“The Outsider is yet another outstanding offering from Stephen King, a darkly engaging ride of a read that demonstrates once again that despite a decades-spanning career, he’s still performing at the height of his powers."
—The Maine Edge
"The Outsider is, in many ways, an ideal combination of classic King supernatural terror and his more contemporary foray into crime writing, wedding an intricately plotted whodunit with a monster tale that has more than a few shades of It...one of King’s strongest books in the past decade; an enjoyable dovetailing of crime and supernatural horror that will please Constant Readers and newcomers alike."
—Emily Burnham, The Bangor Daily News
“[A] fascinating mystery that challenges fans of detective yarns to be on top of their game.”
—The Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A well-researched, finely tuned crime-cum-legal case novel forms a good chunk of the book…it’s a genuinely intriguing mystery… the novel visits some very odd places – and I mean that as a compliment…[King] has always understood that the mystery – the question – is scarier than finding out the truth…The Outsider gives King fans exactly what they want at the same time as cramming in new ideas, proving the least surprising thing of all: that his novels are as strong as they ever were.”
—The Guardian
“How could a man so beloved and respected, a man the whole community has trusted with their children, commit such an unthinkable crime? It can’t be true. It must be true. That’s the situation Stephen King sets up with blazing intensity in the first chapter of his new novel …The Outsider is proof King isn’t losing his touch: It’s a first-rate example of his signature technique of combining solidly realistic writing and believable characters with disturbingly creepy horror…a horrifying ride that challenges its characters not to succumb to their own darkness.”
—Colette Bancroft, The Tampa Bay Tribune
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Detective Anderson: Thank you, Mrs. Stanhope.
Stanhope: Who could believe Terry would do such a
thing? Do you suppose there have been others?
Detective Anderson: We may find that out in the
course of our investigation.
5
Since all City League tournament games were played at Estelle Barga Field—the best baseball field in the county, and the only one with lights for night games—home team advantage was decided by a coin toss. Terry Maitland called tails before the game, as he always did—it was a superstition handed down from his own City League coach, back in the day—and tails it was. “I don’t care where we’re playing, I just like to get my lasties,” he always told his boys.
And tonight he needed them. It was the bottom of the ninth, the Bears were up in this league semifinal by a single run. The Golden Dragons were down to their last out, but they had the bases loaded. A walk, a wild pitch, an error, or an infield single would tie it, a ball hit into the gap would win it. The crowd was clapping, stamping the metal bleachers, and cheering as little Trevor Michaels stepped into the lefthand batter’s box. His batting helmet was the smallest one they had, but it still shaded his eyes and he had to keep pushing it up. He twitched his bat nervously back and forth.
Terry had considered pinch-hitting for the boy, but at just an inch over five feet, he drew a lot of walks. And while he was no home run hitter, he was sometimes able to put the bat on the ball. Not often, but sometimes. If Terry lifted him for a pinch hitter, the poor kid would have to live with the humiliation through the whole next year of middle school. If, on the other hand, he managed a single, he would recall it over beers and backyard barbecues for the rest of his life. Terry knew. He’d been there himself, once upon a time, in the antique era before the game was played with aluminum bats.
The Bears pitcher—their closer, a real fireballer—wound up and threw one right down the heart of the plate. Trevor watched it go by with an expression of dismay. The umpire called strike one. The crowd groaned.
Gavin Frick, Terry’s assistant coach, paced up and down in front of the boys on the bench, the scorebook rolled up in one hand (how many times had Terry asked him not to do that?), and his
XXL Golden Dragons tee-shirt straining over his belly, which was XXXL at least. “I hope letting Trevor bat for himself wasn’t a mistake, Ter,” he said. Sweat was trickling down his cheeks. “He looks scared to death, and I don’t b’lieve he could hit that kid’s speedball with a tennis racket.”
“Let’s see what happens,” Terry said. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.” He didn’t, not really.
The Bears pitcher wound up and released another burner, but this one landed in the dirt in front of home plate. The crowd rose to its feet as Baibir Patel, the Dragons’ tying run at third, jinked a few steps down the line. They settled back with a groan as the ball bounced into the catcher’s mitt. The Bears catcher turned to third, and Terry could read his expression, even through the mask: Justtry it, homeboy. Baibir didn’t.
The next pitch was wide, but Trevor flailed at it, anyway.
“Strike him out, Fritz!” a leather-lung shouted from high up in the bleachers—almost surely the fireballer’s father, from the way the kid snapped his head in that direction. “Strike him owwwwwt!”
Trevor didn’t offer at the next pitch, which was close—too close to take, really, but the ump called it a ball, and it was the Bears’ fans’ turn to groan. Someone suggested that the ump needed stronger glasses. Another fan mentioned something about a seeing-eye dog.
Two and two now, and Terry had a strong sense that the Dragons’ season hung on the next pitch. Either they would play the Panthers for the City championship, and go on to compete in the States—games that were actually televised—or they would go home and meet just one more time, at the barbecue in the Maitland backyard that traditionally marked the end of the season.
He turned to look at Marcy and the girls, sitting where they always did, in lawn chairs behind the home plate screen. His daughters were flanking his wife like pretty bookends. All three waved crossed fingers at him. Terry gave them a wink and a smile and two thumbs up, although he still didn’t feel right. It wasn’t just the game. He hadn’t felt right for some time now. Not quite.
Marcy’s return smile faltered into a puzzled frown. She was looking to her left, and jerked a thumb that way. Terry turned and saw two city cops walking in lockstep down the third base line, past Barry Houlihan, who was coaching there.
“Time, time!” the home plate umpire bellowed, stopping the Bears pitcher just as he went into his wind-up. Trevor Michaels stepped out of the batter’s box, and with an expression of relief, Terry thought. The crowd had grown quiet, looking at the two cops. One of them was reaching behind his back. The other had his hand on the butt of his holstered service weapon.
“Off the field!” the ump was shouting. “Off the field!”
Troy Ramage and Tom Yates ignored him. They walked into the Dragons’ dugout—a makeshift affair containing a long bench, three baskets of equipment, and a bucket of dirty practice balls—and directly to where Terry was standing. From the back of his belt, Ramage produced a pair of handcuffs. The crowd saw them, and raised a murmur that was two parts confusion and one part
excitement: Ooooo.
“Hey, you guys!” Gavin said, hustling up (and almost tripping over Richie Gallant’s discarded first baseman’s mitt). “We’ve got a game to finish here!”
Yates pushed him back, shaking his head. The crowd was dead silent now. The Bears had abandoned their tense defensive postures and were just watching, their gloves dangling. The catcher trotted out to his pitcher, and they stood together halfway between the mound and home plate.
Terry knew the one holding the cuffs a little; he and his brother sometimes came to watch the Pop Warner games in the fall. “Troy? What is this? What’s the deal?”
Ramage saw nothing on the man’s face except what looked like honest bewilderment, but he had been a cop since the nineties, and knew that the really bad ones had that Who, me? look down to a science. And this guy was as bad as they came. Remembering Anderson’s instructions (and not minding a bit), he raised his voice so he could be heard by the entire crowd, which the next day’s paper would announce as 1,588.
“Terence Maitland, I am arresting you for the murder of Frank Peterson.”
Another Ooooo from the bleachers, this one louder, the sound of a rising wind.
Terry frowned at Ramage. He understood the words, they were simple English words forming a simple declarative sentence, he knew who Frankie Peterson was and what had happened to him, but the meaning of the words eluded him. All he could say was “What? Are you kidding?” and that was when the sports photographer from the Flint City Call snapped his picture, the one that appeared on the front page the next day. His mouth was open, his eyes were wide, his hair was sticking out around the edges of his Golden Dragons cap. In that photo he looked both enfeebled and guilty.
“What did you say?”
“Hold out your wrists, please.”
Terry looked at Marcy and his daughters, still sitting in their chairs behind the chickenwire, staring at him with identical expressions of frozen surprise. Horror would come later. Baibir Patel left third base and started to walk toward the dugout, taking off his batting helmet to show the sweaty mat of his black hair, and Terry saw the kid was starting to cry.
“Get back there!” Gavin shouted at him. “Game’s not over.” But Baibir only stood in foul territory, staring at Terry and bawling. Terry stared back, positive (almost positive) he was dreaming all this, and then Tom Yates grabbed him and yanked his arms out with enough force to make Terry stumble forward. Ramage snapped on the cuffs. Real ones, not the plastic strips, big and heavy, gleaming in the late sun. In that same rolling voice, he proclaimed: “You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions, but if you choose to speak, anything you say can be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney during questioning now or in the future. Do you understand?”
“Troy?” Terry could hardly hear his own voice. He felt as if the wind had been punched out of him. “What in God’s name is this?”
Ramage took no notice. “Do you understand?”
Marcy came to the chickenwire, hooked her fingers through it, and shook it. Behind her, Sarah and Grace were crying. Grace was on her knees beside Sarah’s lawn chair; her own had fallen over and lay in the dirt. “What are you doing?” Marcy shouted. “What in
God’s name are you doing? And why are you doing it here?”
“Do you understand?”
What Terry understood was that he had been handcuffed and was now being read his rights in front of almost sixteen hundred staring people, his wife and two young daughters among them. It was not a dream, and it was not simply an arrest. It was, for reasons he could not comprehend, a public shaming. Best to get it over as fast as possible, and get this thing straightened out. Although, even in his shock and bewilderment, he understood that his life would not be going back to normal for a long time.
“I understand,” he said, and then: “Coach Frick, get back.”
Gavin, who had been approaching the cops with his fists clenched and his fat face flushed a hectic red, lowered his arms and stepped back. He looked through the chickenwire at Marcy, raised his enormous shoulders, spread his pudgy hands.
In the same rolling tones, like a town crier belting out the week’s big news in a New England town square, Troy Ramage continued. Ralph Anderson could hear him from where he stood leaning against the unmarked unit. He was doing a good job, was Troy. It was ugly, and Ralph supposed he might be reprimanded for it, but he would not be reprimanded by Frankie Peterson’s
parents. No, not by them.
“If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you before any questioning, if you desire. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Terry said. “I understand something else, too.” He turned to the crowd. “I have no idea why I’m being arrested! Gavin Frick willfinish coaching the game!” And then, as an afterthought: “Baibir, get back to third, and remember to run in foul territory.”
There was a smatter of applause, but only a smatter. The leatherlung in the bleachers yelled again, “What’d you say he did?” And the crowd responding to the question, muttering the two words that would soon be all over the West Side and the rest of the city: Frank Peterson’s name.
Yates grabbed Terry by the arm and started hustling him toward the snack shack and the parking lot beyond. “You can preach to the multitudes later, Maitland. Right now you’re going to jail. And guess what? We have the needle in this state, and we use it. But you’re a teacher, right? You probably knew that.”
They hadn’t gotten twenty steps from the makeshift dugout before Marcy Maitland caught up and grabbed Tom Yates’s arm. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”
Yates shrugged her off, and when she tried to grasp her husband’s arm, Troy Ramage pushed her away, gently but firmly. She stood where she was for a moment, dazed, then saw Ralph Anderson walking to meet his arresting officers. She knew him from Little League, when Derek Anderson had played for Terry’s team, the Gerald’s Fine Groceries Lions. Ralph hadn’t been able to come to all the games, of course, but he came to as many as possible. Back then he’d still been in uniform; Terry had sent him a congratulatory email when he was promoted to detective. Now she ran toward him, fleet over the grass in her old tennis shoes, which she always wore to Terry’s games, claiming there was good luck in them.
“Ralph!” she called. “What’s going on? This is a mistake!”
“I’m afraid it isn’t,” Ralph said.
This part he didn’t like, because he liked Marcy. On the other hand, he had always liked Terry, as well—the man had probably changed Derek’s life only a little, given the boy just a smatter of
confidence-building, but when you were eleven years old, a little confidence was a big deal. And there was something else. Marcy might have known what her husband was, even if she didn’t allow herself to know on a conscious level. The Maitlands had been married a long time, and horrors like the Peterson boy’s murder simply did not come out of thin air. There was always a build-up to the act.
“You need to go home, Marcy. Right away. You may want to leave the girls with a friend, because there will be police waiting for you.”
She only looked at him, uncomprehending.
From behind them came the chink of an aluminum bat making good contact, although there were few cheers; those in attendance were still shocked, and more interested in what they’d just witnessed than the game before them. Which was sort of a shame. Trevor Michaels had just hit the ball harder than ever before in his life, harder even than when Coach T was throwing meatballs in practice. Unfortunately, it was a line drive straight to the Bears shortstop, who didn’t even have to jump to make the catch.
Game over.
Product details
- ASIN : B078M5G7XH
- Publisher : Scribner (May 22, 2018)
- Publication date : May 22, 2018
- Language : English
- File size : 4793 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 655 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #13,305 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #9 in Movie Tie-In Fiction
- #30 in U.S. Horror Fiction
- #50 in Horror Suspense
- Customer Reviews:
Videos
Videos for this product
0:16
Click to play video
The Outsider: Book Trailer
Publisher Video
About the author
Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His first crime thriller featuring Bill Hodges, MR MERCEDES, won the Edgar Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Both MR MERCEDES and END OF WATCH received the Goodreads Choice Award for the Best Mystery and Thriller of 2014 and 2016 respectively.
King co-wrote the bestselling novel Sleeping Beauties with his son Owen King, and many of King's books have been turned into celebrated films and television series including The Shawshank Redemption, Gerald's Game and It.
King was the recipient of America's prestigious 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. In 2007 he also won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King in Maine.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Side note: I highly recommend reading the Bill Hodges trilogy first. The events don’t connect, but there is an important character, Holly, who is in both. I absolutely adore Holly and all her weirdness. I relate to her a lot.
The depiction of the first crime scene of the young boy was honestly haunting, it generally made me feel sick to my stomach. The confusion surrounding Terry’s whereabouts kept me on the edge of my seat. Terry so obviously stares into security cameras and leaves all kinds of damning evidence behind, but fully denies being involved and in fact has an alibi. How could he be seen and on video being at two different places, miles apart??
King dives deep into each character, showing how each of them is effected by this tragedy. A couple suicides are committed or attempted. One character unfortunately even has a heart attack due to the stressful events. The Peterson family obviously being effected the most, has the most heartbreaking ending.
We also learn about a eerily similar case in Ohio involving two young girls. The tragic details of this case were also very unsettling and sad.
When it’s revealed that a sinister supernatural entity is the true culprit, everything truly starts to fall into place. It has been sticking around to inflict even more pain and confusion to the small town, the entity feeds on it. The young daughter of Terry being haunted and tormented at night by the outsider was one of the most chilling moments.
This book is extremely devastating. Although Holly and Ralph put a stop to all of the outsiders sadistic plans, no one truly has a happy ending.
Overall? The story was extremely fun. The plot kept me in suspense, and there were plenty of enjoyable characters as well as deplorable ones.
HOWEVER, there were moments I had to pause and walk away. One of which came in the very second or third paragraph. I understood King was trying to set the scene, but the use of two black teens saying "it's the five-o" was undoubtedly shoehorned in. Nobody says that. Another instance like this came from the one Mexican character (who was definitely used for the sole purpose of feeding us lore that inspired King).
He said "ese" at least five times, which is five more than I've heard any of my Mexican relatives say it. Again, nobody says that.
Then the infamous Willow Rainwater. She talks about putting on her buckskins and feathers and "goofy dancing." Just because you have an indigenous character saying something... abrasive, doesn't make it okay. There really was no reason for any of those details, and in moments like that, Stephen King's age shows.
If he ditched the poor efforts of inclusion (just cast those people into the roles when it inevitably hits the screen, or maybe write those characters the way he does any of his others - the main characters, basically), and stuck to the question of whether or not the police were wrong in what they did, it would've worked more effectively as a political/topical think piece.
Now for the story itself, the other reason I can only give this four out of five (and there are spoilers ahead): the build up was so fantastic, only for the ending to be a flatline. Admittedly, endings are ridiculously hard. Saying SK can't write an ending is a tired trope, but this is just another stack of evidence against him. Truthfully, when they finally revealed Ralph Anderson's son (Derek) was the same age as the murdered boy who started this whole thing, I thought that was the nail in the coffin. Anderson had been warned multiple times to stop digging, and I was convinced that he would return from his heroic adventure to find his son murdered the way he found the Peterson boy.
Alas, that didn't happen.
Maybe SK got tired of writing depressing endings. Maybe he threw in the towel. All of it happened too abruptly for me to say. Initially, I was hoping that there would be no monster or supernatural element. I hoped that those doubts would be effectively squashed by the end, when we realize that this horror was just a tragic, real thing that happens.
Complaints aside, it was a solid read and kept my interest for the three days it took to finish.
Terry Maitland is arrested in front of the whole town, booked, jailed and ready foe his arraignment. On that day, he was gunned down. A stranger was lurking, Detective Ralph Anderson saw him, but when they reviewed footage, no one was there.
When Howie Hold (Terry's lawyer) hires Holly to assist, this is where everyone on this team need to have an open mind, need to see that an Elaborate Cuco could be walking among them!
Great read, I loved the Mr. Mercedes series, and I love the character development of Holly.
Top reviews from other countries
Terrific! Top-Notch Thriller from Mr. King.
That was really fast-paced & fabulous thriller/mystery/horror from Stephen King. I'm glad that I purchased this book from Amazon. First I was confused as whether to buy this or Mr. Mercedes but I'm truly happy that I bought this one.
The first 250 pages were truly intense & you may not want to keep the book on shelf but keep flipping the page to read what is coming next even if it takes you whole night to read.
The characters, the plot, the writing, everything was superb. Though, I've one complain with Mr. King for spoiling some information from his Mr. Mercedes book concerning Bill Hodges. But nevertheless, I'll also read that after some time.
Now, I'm waiting for the movie to watch. I hope it is as good as this book was.
P.S On my way to purchase all the other King's book which are highly recommended.