The Library Policeman: 03/24/07

Four Past Midnight contains four novellas by Stephen King. For the purpose of my book count, I'm counting each novella as a separate "book" and I'll be posting a separate review for each one.

"The Library Policeman" is the third novella. Librarians are evil. Libraries are too dark and too quiet. Overdue book fines are inherently scary. What Sam doesn't realize is just how bad things can get if he loses a pair of books.

The story of the evil she-devil librarian and her henchman the Library Policeman had its moments but it didn't hold my attention as well as the previous two novellas did.

Near the end of the story there is a lengthy flashback told in first person from one of the locals whose life had been ruined by Adelia the librarian. It was during his monologue that I had to struggle to pay attention. There was just too much info dumping. King usually distributes the back story better or saves it for a tight explanation at the end. As "The Library Policeman" is more of a "monster of the week" type story, the ending is reserved for the great showdown between the protagonist and the librarian.

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