The Dead Zone (the novel)

Stephen King is famous as being a "master of horror" and he deserves the title. His contributions to the genre  include novels such as It, Carrie and Misery. His narrative style is nothing out of this world though, and he himself has recognized that more than once and even advises to write just keeping it simple.

I would say that his main quality is his creative capacity and his vivid imagination. In special I like The Dead Zone as he presents an intricate plot which sees an ending where everything fits in the right place. 

It is about a young man named Johnny Smith who after suffering an accident falls into a profound coma from which he awakes after several years. When he does, everything in his life has moved on such as his girlfriend who is now married to another man and has a child. Inadvertently he has also changed for he has the power of precognition: touching a person is enough for him to see the future of a person. The novel progresses showing us how this man adjusts to this new world and to his ability that somehow makes him an abnormality that is here for a reason. Johnny feels his death is approaching and feels he has to do something before he dies: among the many people he has touched there is a man named Stillson destined to be the next president of the United States and also the next Hitler. Before he dies he secretly gets inside a balcony in one of the places where Stillson is holding a presentation that is part of his presidential campaign. When Stillson appears he shoots and fails. In the ensuing confusion Stillson takes a young child to protect himself from the shots. Johnny recognizes the child as his past girlfriend's son and decides not to shoot but is in turn shot twice by Stillson's bodyguards. Johnny falls and Stillson approaches him and Johnny touches him once again and sees.  A photograph and taken a shot of Stillson holding the child a photo which signifies the end of his political career and thus thanks to Johnny's actions, Stillson's future is cancelled. Later on, Johnny dies.

As you see this novel is testimony of King's innate genius and is part of his great legacy. It is also a picture of what the United States was like in the time it was written and the perspective King had back then of his own country. Get this book and get ready for a long but entertaining ride to the unlikely and unexplained.