Stephen King is the king of horror. I believe I haven’t talked here much about it, but I’m a bit of a cinephile. I absolutely love watching films, especially thrillers, suspense, or horror. Given that, it’s no surprise that I’ve already seen plenty of movies and TV shows based on books by Stephen King. However, I was always somewhat reluctant to read a book written by him, thinking that seeing a film or a series would be enough. I was so wrong.
For those who don’t know, The Outsider starts when an eleven-year-old boy is brutally murdered in Flint City. All the evidence points at one of the most beloved of Flint City’s citizens: Terry Maitland. He’s a little league coach, school teacher, husband, and father of two daughters. Detective Ralph Anderson orders his detainment during a baseball game, so all neighbors are there to witness it. Maitland has a solid alibi that demonstrated he was elsewhere during the moment of the crime, but the DNA evidence shows the contrary. But Anderson is not satisfied with the outcome, even when the case is closed. Maitland seems like a good man, he even trained Anderson’s son, so how could he have committed such a crime? And the most bizarre of all questions: how can he be at two places at once?
The plot was engaging and well-developed. It was easy to empathize with the main characters, especially Ralph Anderson and Holly Gibney. What I enjoyed most while reading this book was the different points of view. It’s written in third-person, so the reader is also provided with bits of perspectives from a few secondary characters, even an antagonist. All of these fragments add up the puzzle pieces that help understand the whole situation better.
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Olivine Books 