'Salem's Lot

by King, Stephen

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published 04/10/2007 by Hodder & Stoughton (Hodder Paperback) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 768 pages, None

With a stunning new cover look, King's chilling classic of a small new England town about to be engulfed in terror.

Turn off the television - in fact, why don't you turn off all the lights except for the one over your favourite chair? - and we'll talk about vampires here in the dim. I think I can make you believe in them. Stephen King, from the Introduction. 'Salem's Lot is a small New England town with the usual quota of gossips, drinkers, weirdos and respectable folk. Of course there are tales of strange happenings - but not more than in any other town its size.

Ben Mears, a moderately successful writer, returns to the Lot to write a novel based on his early years, and to exorcise the terrors that have haunted him since childhood. The event he witnessed in the house now rented by a new resident. A newcomer with a strange allure. A man who causes Ben some unease as things start to happen: a child disappears, a dog is brutally killed - nothing unusual, except the list starts to grow.

Soon surprise will turn to bewilderment, bewilderment to confusion and finally to terror . . .