This is no regular cannibal

Black House is already at the top of the US best sellers, only a week after its worldwide publication; two million copies have been printed, and the authors received a $20 million advance. It's the sequel to The Talisman, a fat fantasy tale published 17 years ago, about a 13-year-old called Jack Sawyer, who travelled to another world called The Territories on a quest to save his mother's life. The Talisman sold five million copies.

This is the story of Jack Sawyer grown up. Now he's living in a rural community called French Landing, in Wisconsin, having taken early retirement from the LAPD, haunted by memories of his past. He's yanked smartly back into service to help track down a child-eating serial killer, dubbed The Fisherman, by the local police, who haven't a clue how to solve the case. People are scared, and there's some strange behaviour going on, especially down at the old folks home. When a fourth child, Tyler Marshall, disappears, panic begins to break out.

You'd be forgiven for thinking this might be just another cops 'n' killers yarn, but weird elements soon start to weigh in. There are flashes of Jack's past and his visions of another world; Jack also senses, as does the reader, that this Fisherman is no regular Hannibal Lectertype. He's barely even human.

Jack is helped by his friend, Henry Leyden, a brilliant creation. Leyden is a blind DJ, a dandy dresser, sensitive and cultivated, with exquisite taste, hearing and smell.

Actually he's the best character in the book. Jack also enlists muscle power from The Thunder Five, a group of Harley biker-cum-philosophers, and is the only person who can understand the crazed babblings of Tyler's mother, who has been committed to the funny farm. This is a strange novel that seems to wobble uncomfortably between fantasy quest, horror and police procedural. There are references to characters and themes in some of King's other stories, without purpose. Some bits rattle along, others pall. Well, King and Straub have admitted to writing chunks in turn. The climax, however, set within the spooky black house, is masterful.

Stephen King has shown us again and again what a marvellous writer he is. He expresses so well people's thoughts and secrets, their motives and desires, both universal and idiosyncratic. His sentences are direct and unfussy, his style irresistible. He can pack in some of the most stomach-churning descriptions of gore and pain you'll probably ever read, and be comic and terrifying, too. If you want undiluted Steve though, buy the corker he published earlier this year, Dreamcatcher, out in paperback in November.