FULL DARK, NO STARS (TV)

The acclaimed #1 u003ciu003eNew York Timesu003c/iu003e and undisputed King of Horror Stephen King delivers five unforgettable short works, two of which will soon be adapted for film, and whichu003ciu003eBooklist u003c/iu003ecalled “raw looks at the limits of greed, revenge, and self-deception.” Likeu003ciu003eDifferent Seasons u003c/iu003eand u003ciu003eFour Past Midnightu003c/iu003e, which generated such enduring hit films asu003ciu003eThe Shawshank Redemption u003c/iu003eand u003ciu003eStand by Meu003c/iu003e,u003ciu003e Full Dark, No Starsu003c/iu003e proves Stephen King a master of the long story form.u003cbru003eu003cbru003e“I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger…” writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up “1922,” the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife Arlette proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eIn “Big Driver,” soon to be a major Lifetime movie starring Maria Bello, a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger is along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face to face with another stranger: the one inside herself.u003cbru003eu003cbru003e“Fair Extension,” the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Harry Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eIn the last of the tales, soon to be a major motion picture, Darcy Anderson's husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips and his unsuspecting wife looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It's a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends “A Good Marriage.”