Blaze

At 6'7" and built like a bear, Clay Blaisdell is one big mother, but his capers are strictly small-time until he meets George Rackley. George introduces him to a hundred cons and the one big score that every small timer dreams of: kidnap. The Gerards are filthy rich, and their child, the last twig on the family tree, could be worth millions. And after all a baby can't ID you, so you can return it alive. There's only one problem: when the time comes for the deal to go down, George, the brains of the partnership, has died. Or has he? Now Blaze is running into the teeth of a howling storm and the cops are closing in. He's got a baby as a hostage, and the Crime of the Century just turned into a race against time in the white hell of the Maine woods. Lost for years amongst Stephen King's papers, and published for the first time ever in 2007, Blaze is a heartstopping thriller reminiscent of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men with the power of a noir fable.

Stephen King has been described by the Guardian as 'one of the greatest storytellers of our time', by the Mirror as a 'genius' and by The Sunday Times as 'one of the most fertile storytellers of the modern novel.' In 2003, he was given the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives with his wife, the novelist Tabitha King, for most of the year in Maine, USA.