For some reason this Stephen King novel seems to keep slipping off my list, and I don’t know why. I stopped it sliding off this time, and dug into a creepy and fun novel that feels like it’s on the edge of other King stories without throwing you right in the middle of one.

It’s like a group of ordinary men, in this case a small town police department, brushed up against something extraordinary, one that may tie in with other King tales, most specifically the story evokes the idea of the Low Men in Yellow Coats (from Hearts in Atlantis aka the Can-Toi from The Dark Tower) and their cars.

And that’s because a car, that is not a car, ends up in the hands of a local PD, when it’s abandoned. But on examination, there’s nothing right about this car, including the fact that most of it’s engine and dashboard are not much more than a facade.

Young Ned wants to know about his father, Curt’s life, and death on the PD, and consequently he discovers what is out in one of the back sheds. A Buick that’s not a Buick, and after some pestering the cops who have raised him as much as his mother, reveal the story of the Buick, and Curt.

The story slides back and forth easily through time as the department shares the story. There are some familiar King moments, implying at the end or start of a chapter that something truly heinous is about to happen. He does it to build tension, and I have never known it not to pay off.

Things come out of the Buick 8 (so christened because of a similarity to a Bob Dylan song, and the odd engine that Curt discovers. Not very good things. Or maybe just not things meant to walk in our world.

But it also takes things.

Everything builds up, past and present into a troubling final confrontation with the (not a) car, and it’s as troubling as you would expect it to be.

And I have to say two things, King doesn’t muck up the ending, I liked everything about this one. And it definitely makes you wonder a little more about the Low Men and their cars. And maybe the reason I stayed away from this one for so long, was that despite reading the blurb, I just couldn’t get past the idea that maybe we were revisiting Christine in some way.

I couldn’t be more wrong. It’s more in line with the (all things serve the) Beam, than a 1958 Plymouth Fury. I’m glad I waited on this one, and even more glad, that it reminds me that there are still a number of King books I haven’t read. But I am definitely one of his Constant Readers, and will be digging into more soon.