Audiobook: Duma Key by Stephen King

Duma Key (audible.com)
by Stephen King
read by John Slattery

After a life-changing accident, Edgar Freemantle gains a window to the supernatural.

The book:  A fun and scary story told in the King’s classic Master-Storyteller style.  We get glimpses of lots of King trademark themes and styles here, including a few nods to Lovecraft, and my favorite King-ism — the ability to take a perfectly mundane object, situation, or happening, and make it incredibly creepy.  My only complaint was that it felt a bit drawn out and plodding at times.  Understandably, it’s the setting and story that almost demand the book’s pacing, and it wasn’t horribly slow (I never felt like giving up on it), but still, the audiobook felt like it could have been a few hours shorter.  Don’t take that as a non-recommendation, though — this is still a quality King book that won’t disappoint fans of his work (and that includes me).

The narration:  I’ve come to expect nothing but excellent readers in Stephen King’s audiobooks, and John Slattery didn’t disappoint.  He did an excellent job with this book.  One thing that I found interesting:  Having listened to King himself read his On Writing book, Slattery’s voice has a similar quality in cadence and tone, to King’s.  It gave his reading of King’s words a great deal of credibility.

In summary:  it’s a new Stephen King novel…do I need to say more?