Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape shifter, a "skin man," Roland Deschain takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast's most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Magic Tales of the Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, "The Wind through the Keyhole." (The novel can be placed between Dark Tower...

After suffering a miscarriage brought on by a beating, an abused wife leaves her husband, using his ATM card to buy a bus ticket out of town. The novel describes her struggle to begin a new life, then her husband, a sadistic police officer, comes looking for her. After fourteen years of beatings and abuse, Rose runs away from her husband. Unfortunately, he is a detective, and he has ways of finding her.

A scarlet-and-white, 1958 Plymouth Fury -- salvaged over every rational dissent and objection, from decay -- possesses its new owner and brings hellish terror to him, his friends, and his classmates.