King fans like me have long promoted the argument that to describe the most popular author of our time as a ''horror writer'' is to do the man a great disservice.
The truth is he is a storyteller, not a peddler of cheap terror. His very best writing is the stuff concerned with relationships, friendship, the intensity of childhood, and, yes, the infinite depths of fear.
Joyland is a short novel set in what Americans would term King's ''wheelhouse'' - a small town in the 1970s. College student Devin Jones has landed a summer job at an amusement park and soon embraces the carny life.
Then, the kicker. A story of a murder in the ghost house. Which may be linked to other murders.
Weaving the mystery of the murder with the protagonist's encounter with a sick child and his mother, King is off and running.
It's not a particularly brilliant murder mystery, I have to say. The identity of the killer is .. . well, I don't want to say too much.
But I'm fine with the murder almost being secondary to the sweet smaller moments of the story. King has a delicate touch and Joyland is one of his breezier reads.
Hayden Meikle is ODT sports editor.
