Under the Dome

Recently, some of you may have been disappointed by King's newer novels. I've been told by some that they couldn't get through the one at all. Under the Dome returns Stephen King to my list of great storytellers. In the author's note, King states, "I tried to write a book that would keep the pedal consistently to the metal." While the sheer weight of the book limited me to reading it at the table, the story is a page turner that kept me obsessively reading every moment I could. The pedal stayed to the metal from the time the Dome seals off the town to the very end with Big Jim Rennie, second town selectman and used car dealer (not to mention as corrupt as you can imagine), Dale Barbara, local cook and ex-army (whose problems with Jim Rennie, Jr. had him leaving town), and a whole cast of characters that are the make up of any small town in America.


Meet the Characters (from Amazon.com)
Dale Barbara
Barbie, a drifter, ex-army, walks with a burden of guilt from the time he spent in Iraq. Working as a short-order cook at Sweetbriar Rose is the closest thing he’s had to a family life. When his old commander, Colonel Cox, calls from outside, Barbie's burden becomes the town itself.

Julia Shumway
The attractive Editor and Publisher of the local town newspaper, The Chester's Mill Democrat, Julia is self-assured and Republican to the core, but she is drawn to Barbie and discovers, when it matters most, that her most vulnerable moment might be her most liberating.

Jim Rennie, Sr.
"Big Jim." A used car dealer with a fierce smile and no warmth, he'd given his heart to Jesus at age sixteen and had little left for his customers, his neighbors, or his dying wife and deteriorating son. The town's Second Selectman, he’s used to having things his way. He walks like a man who has spent his life kicking ass.

Joseph McClatchey
Scarecrow Joe, a 13-year-old also known as "King of the Geeks" and "Skeletor, a bona fide brain whose backpack bears the legend "fight the powers that be." He’s smarter than anyone, and proves it in a crisis.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

This is a book I couldn't put down, even if it meant staying up till the book fell off my lap as I nodded off. I carried it around with me for 2 days in case I had a few minutes to read a couple of pages. It has all the components to make a great story. A forty year old unsolved murder, a rich, wealthy family with skeletons in their closet, a love story, and a cast of interesting characters.
A journalist is hired by the wealthy family to find out what happened to Harriet forty years ago. He is very adept at researching past histories but he meets a girl with a dragon tattoo named Lisbeth, whose talents at hacking computers and discovering old skeletons far and away surpasses anything he's ever done. Lisbeth also carries around some secrets of her own. The author manages to suck you in and keep you in suspense throughout the story. One of the best books I've read.