The last of the Richard Bachman novels, recently recovered and published for the first time. Stephen King's "dark half" may have saved the best for last.

A fellow named Richard Bachman wrote Blaze in 1973 on an Olivetti typewriter, then turned the machine over to Stephen King, who used it to write Carrie. Bachman died in 1985 ("cancer of the pseudonym"), but in late 2006 King found the original typescript of Blaze among his papers at the University of Maine's Fogler Library ("How did this get here?!"), and decided that with a little revision it ought to be published.

Blaze is the story of Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. -- of the crimes committed against him and the crimes he commits, including his last, the kidnapping of a baby heir worth millions. Blaze has been a slow thinker since childhood, when his father threw him down the stairs -- and then threw him down again. After escaping an abusive institution for boys when he was a teenager, Blaze hooks up with George, a seasoned criminal who thinks he has all the answers. But then George is killed, and Blaze, though haunted by his partner, is on his own.

He becomes one of the most sympathetic criminals in all of literature. This is a crime story of surprising strength and sadness, with a suspenseful current sustained by the classic workings of fate and character -- as taut and riveting as Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

理查德·巴剋曼是斯蒂芬·金使用的一個筆名。在斯蒂芬·金的寫作生涯起步之初，齣版商普遍認為一位作者每年隻宜齣一本新書，多瞭不易被市場接受。為瞭齣版更多作品而又不至於讓讀者厭倦金這一“品牌”，斯蒂芬·金産生瞭用另一個名字發錶作品的念頭，他說服齣版商采納瞭他這一想法。

斯蒂芬·金曾經聲明，他使用巴剋曼這一筆名還有尋求自己在“斯蒂芬·金”這一名號之外價值的用心，同時也想看看自己的成就究竟應歸因於纔華還是運氣。因此他在以巴剋曼的名義齣版新書時刻意避免在市場營銷活動時露麵，然而他還是沒能弄清有關“是纔華還是運氣”的問題。巴剋曼的某部作品首印售齣兩萬八韆冊，但巴剋曼其實就是斯蒂芬·金這一秘密揭開後，銷量立即翻瞭十番。