Duma Key by Stephen King Coming In January '08 - Page 2

King deserts the familiar bleak countryside of Maine (although Edgar is from Minnesota) and sends his protagonist looking for solace and sanity down in the Florida Keys. Apparently, King has been vacationing down in that area for the last few years and has become quite enamored of it.

Unfortunately for Edgar, he’s a Stephen King character in a Stephen King book. He’s earmarked for weirdness and horrible things. It doesn’t sound like it takes long to happen.

Evidently Duma Key is already filled with restless malevolence just waiting to break loose. The island’s mistress, Elizabeth Eastlake, has been hiding secrets for most of her eighty-some-odd years. Her past - and it has to be a good one filled with evil things and twisted passions, otherwise this wouldn’t be a proper King novel - breaks free and comes to life through Edgar’s paintings.

Of course, the idea of paintings coming to life is old, and King has even touched on it now and again in different places, but the idea is as wonderful now as it ever was. And in the hands of a master storyteller like King, this is going to be one chilling, frightening ride.

King has stated that this novel came to him from the same cloth he used to write the bestseller, Lisey’s Story, and that many of the same themes are once again present. It’s also a big, fat book, totally nearly 600 pages, according to the Amazon.com listing.

Personally, I can’t wait. Some people prefer the Stephen King who brings evil up from the graveyards and creates unkillable monsters. But I prefer the subtle evil and rich characterizations of his novels like Bag of Bones. I get the sense that this is going to be a book like that.

One thing I do know, the next few months are going to be hard to get through while I’m waiting. The book cover is beautiful and haunting, and I’m going to be thinking about the story a lot. I’m sure other readers will be doing the same thing.

Article Author: Mel Odom

Mel Odom is the author of over 100 novels. Winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award for 2002 and runner-up for the Christy in 2005, he's written in several genres, including tie-in novels for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and novelizations of Blade, XXX, and Tomb Raider. …

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