The former book's conclusion gave us fair warning where End of Watch was going to go, granted, but even so, if you're going to introduce something speculative into a world arranged around the idea that every event can be explained, you have to at least give a reason why the rules have summarily changed. When for whatever reason he can't lean on the MacGuffins he so often uses to sustain his stories, he has to work that much harder to make them in some sense momentous, and this, I think, brings out the best in King as a creator-see last year's Finders Keepers, which for my money holds up against even Different Seasons. Oddly for an author so closely associated with the supernatural, Stephen King's naturalistic narratives have been among his most magical. Hartsfield has no control over his own body, so, somehow, he's started hijacking the bodies of passers-by to do his dirty work: work which involves inciting the seeming suicides of the several thousand survivors of his various attacks way back. Look inside Dr Z, and there, pulling all the levers, is Brady Hartsfield. He's become a living Russian nesting doll, which goes perfectly with his furry Russian hat. Her final doubts are swept away and she knows for sure. For good or for ill, End of Watch doubles down on that then-unexpected direction:
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