Okay. I knew King could write. From intricately plotted epic fantasy to tense alien invasion horrors, to small town environmental warning stories with dozens of characters. I've been behind him 100%. With Blaze I came to find out that he also kicks major ass at small, intimate, close up novels that have a simple plot, but remain wholly entertaining and emotional.

Clayton Blaisdell, Jr, is stupid. And he knows it. His drunkard of a father lopped him down a set of stairs three times in a row as a kid. Before he was reading constantly and a huge success at school, now math gives him migraines and the coffee cup sized dent in his forehead scares away most people. Until he meets George Rackley, a fellow con man, and after pulling a couple of small time "gags" the two set their sights on the infant heir to a huge family fortune - the "Big One" as George puts it. After that they're out of the game, off to live the good life on some remote island in the Bahamas.

Unfortunately for them both, George dies, and Blaze is left to pick up the pieces.

King's characterization of Blaze, a lovable giant whose life of crime was nowhere near his fault, and all his father's, is remarkable. I felt so much just bottomless sadness after Blaze ran home and moaned loudly after stealing a car, with the help of dead (and imaginary... or is he?) George. He's almost instantly likable, the flashbacks to his childhood at Hetton House (an orphanage) is brilliantly trickled throughout the story, leading to revelations about how he met George and ultimately how he died. And then the parts where dead George shows up to talk sense to Blaze, and one scene in particular where George tells Blaze something that later becomes the truth, almost lent a supernatural undertone to it all.

Bottom line here? I can't see anyone who wouldn't at least enjoy this. It's emotional, especially when Blaze starts to feel ownership over the kidnapped baby, Joe. It's very tense, as Blaze evades cops through the white haze of the Maine backwoods. And it has one of the most saddest and happiest at-the-same-time endings I have literally ever read in a novel. This may be my new favorite King book (well besides The Waste Lands and Under The Dome) and there's barely any bloodshed or other horror tropes to be found within its pages.

Highly recommended.