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The #1 New York Times bestseller and "frightening" (The New York Times) thriller from master storyteller Stephen King about a clairvoyant man who must weigh his options when he sees the terrible future awaiting mankind.
When Johnny Smith was six years old, head trauma caused by a bad ice-skating accident left him with a nasty bruise on his forehead and, from time to time, those hunches...infrequent but accurate snippets of things to come. But it isn't until Johnny's a grown man-now having survived a horrifying auto injury that plunged him into a coma lasting four-and-a-half years-that his special abilities really push to the fore. Johnny Smith has come back from the void with an extraordinary gift that becomes his life's curse...presenting visions of what was and what will be for both the innocent and guilty alike. But when he encounters a ruthlessly ambitious and amoral man who promises a terrifying fate for all humanity, Johnny must find a way to prevent a harrowing predestination from becoming reality...
About the author
Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes
Never Flinch, the short story collection
You Like It Darker (a
New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024),
Holly (a
New York Times Notable Book of 2023),
Fairy Tale,
Billy Summers,
If It Bleeds,
The Institute,
Elevation,
The Outsider,
Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy:
End of Watch,
Finders Keepers, and
Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel
11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by
The New York Times Book Review and won the
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works
The Dark Tower,
It,
Pet Sematary,
Doctor Sleep, and
Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with
It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
Summary
Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine
A #1 New York Times bestseller about a man who wakes up from a five-year coma able to see people’s futures and the terrible fate awaiting mankind—a “compulsive page-turner” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
Johnny Smith awakens from a five-year coma after his car accident and discovers that he can see people’s futures and pasts when he touches them. Many consider his talent a gift; Johnny feels cursed. His fiancée married another man during his coma and people clamor for him to solve their problems.
When Johnny has a disturbing vision after he shakes the hand of an ambitious and amoral politician, he must decide if he should take drastic action to change the future. With “powerful tension that holds the reader to the story like a pin to a magnet” (The Houston Post), The Dead Zone is a “faultlessly paced…continuously engrossing” (Los Angeles Times) novel of second sight.
