The Wind Through The Keyhole by Stephen King

The Wind Through The Keyhole by Stephen King is published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £19.99. Available now.

Coming fresh to Stephen King's The Dark Tower series was not the problem I feared, as he delivers on his promise in the foreword to make the story suitable for newcomers and veteran fans alike.

The series is King's version of a fantasy epic in the same vein as the Lord Of The Rings but he includes tropes used in other fantasies, such as characters and incidents from parallel worlds overlapping with each other.

There is even a nod to Aslan from CS Lewis's Narnia tales at one point, although I doubt Lewis would have approved of the occasional explicit language used in this story.

King once more provides a good read with a well-plotted story involving a hunt for a "skin-man" who can change from human to deadly animal.

The book is always entertaining as it follows the saga of Roland Deschain, a gunslinger in Mid-World, and provides an entertainingly tense fairytale sub-plot.

7/10

(Review by Chris Gibbings)