I read a lot of the classic scary Kings early on in my journey through his works, so a lot of the titles I’ve read recently have been different genres... Making me forget just how fucking well he does scary. Like blood running cold, goosebumps on your neck scary. That’s where Bag of Bones shines, but I could have done with a lot more scares and a lot less detailed legal battles...

The gist is, Mike Noonan is a thriller author grieving the sudden death of his young wife. But he realises that his wife may have been keeping something from him before she died, luring him back to their summerhouse on the TR where ghostly beings are afoot. That makes it sound a lot more twee than it is - those ghosties are not to be fucked with.

Although Jo, Mike’s wife, is dead from the beginning, she still has a strong presence throughout and I really liked her character. I also tried to like Mike, but his male gaze was difficult sometimes. But I was here for scares, and scares were delivered! Having now read 64 Kings, I’m fully aware of his downfalls but I’m also fully aware that no one does that creeping sense of unease like the King of horror! And you can really see the influence of one of his great inspirations here, I think - Shirley Jackson!

The pace is uneven, and I think it could have been cut by a good 150 pages (and I also could have done with a serious graphic scene being edited down - TW for rape), but I still read it in about 3 days at 500 pages, so it does tick over.

There’s some serious meta shit at the end where Mike reflects on no longer wanting to write about murders after seeing so much bloodshed, because it’s more than just a plot device... I GOT NEWS FOR YA, KING. I think he does try to impart a lesson with his books, in this case racial tensions in turn of the century America, but occasionally it comes off a bit heavy-handed.