SOMETIMES...DEAD IS BETTER. The house looked right, felt right to Dr Louis Creed. Rambling, old, unsmart and comfortable. A place where the family could settle; the children grow and play and explore.

The rolling hills and meadows of Maine seemed a world away from the fume-choked dangers of Chicago. Only the occasional big truck out on the two-lane highway, grinding up through the gears, hammering down the long gradients, growled out an intrusive threat. But behind the house and far away from the road: that was safe.

Just a carefully cleared path up into the woods where generations of local children have processed with the solemn innocence of the young, taking with them their dear departed pets for burial. A sad place maybe, but safe. Surely a safe place. Not a place to seep into your dreams, to wake you, sweating with fear and foreboding.

'King can make the flesh creep half a world away'  The Times

'So beautifully paced that you cannot help but be pulled in'  Guardian

'The most frightening novel Stephen King has ever written'  Publisher's Weekly

'Wild, powerful, disturbing'  Washington Post Book Review