King’s grim debut novel follows the lives of a serial killer and a South Carolina detective.

DS Raymond Wright’s newest homicide case involves a dismembered body. More bodies, with the same M.O., turn up in the area of St. Anna. Readers get an early introduction to this novel’s psycho—Edmund Glass, a seemingly unremarkable guy. Intermittent flashbacks, starting a half-century earlier, shine a light on Edmund’s and Raymond’s lives. Raymond, who’s Black, grew up in 1960s segregated America and drew at least one racist bully’s depraved attention. Edmund, like many real-life serial murderers, is White and killed animals at a young age. Raymond’s investigation stirs up a few suspects and even fewer leads. Meanwhile, Edmund, gay and closeted, targets only men, luring victims (whom he disturbingly calls “guests”) back to his place. These lead characters’ paths eventually intersect; one is determined to stop a murderer while the other continually feeds his “hunger.” King’s tale is somber and superbly understated; it implies much of the violence, including Edmund’s cannibalistic urges. The concise, unadorned prose instead concentrates on character development. It’s fascinating to watch the main characters take drastically different paths despite their similar backgrounds. For example, both had fathers who were distant and absent from their childhoods. Raymond is, unsurprisingly, the more sympathetic of the two; he cares for his Alzheimer’s-stricken mother, though she had never been a loving parent. While King sometimes depicts the killer as multidimensional, Edmund is still a cold, animalistic individual who growls, bites, and worse.

An unexpectedly subtle and convincing portrayal of a predator.