Mike Noonan, a best selling novelist, is suffering from writers block four years after his wife’s sudden and tragic death. He starts having nightmares of their summer house out in TR-90, Maine. He finally decides to see what all his dreams are about and moves into the cottage he and his wife name Sara Laughs, after the black blues singer Sara Tidwell who now seems to be haunting his house. On his first day he sees a three year old Kyra Devore walking down the middle of a busy street. He stops traffic and rescues her as her mother, Mattie, comes racing down the street to find her. Mike finds out that Kyra’s grandfather, billionaire Max Devore, is trying to get custody after Krya’s father dies. Mike enlists the help of an expensive New York lawyer, John Storrow to help Mattie. Mike and Kyra start sharing ghostly encounters through refrigerator magnets and Mike starts to realize not all is as it seems in the TR. He is haunted by ghosts who want to hurt him because he is interfering in a revenge plot set by Sara Tidwell by one of Noonan’s ancestors. He digs deep and finds out what had actually happened to Sarah and a conspiracy brushed under the rug by all of the TR.
I rate this book, on a scale of 1-10, a 6. I actually had to stop reading it at one point and only picked it up a year later because I had nothing else to read. The story is an amazing one, but King wraps it around in layers of nonsense that bores you to tears. The only reason I didn’t rate it lower than a 6 was because the parts that actually get your blood pumping are written in amazing fashion. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, I idolize Stephen King and it hurts my heart to rate this book bad, but I think he was too good for his own good in terms of writing.
-Ben
The Burning Book Case 