Just Finished Reading (Again) Stephen King's Needful Things

About eight or nine years ago I read Stephen King's 1991 novel Needful Things for the first time...and just got around to reading it again.  More or less a rather gruesome adaptation of the great late Ray Bradbury's chilling 1962 Something Wicked This Way Comes to King's fictional universe full of sinister Maine small towns, this story examines how people will sell their souls in order to get and then hold onto what are essentially worthless things.  We've seen this sort of theme before in popular fiction and especially in TV shows like Twilight Zone, but here the ultimately demonic character of Leland Gaunt, who has just set up his new business called "Needful Things" in downtown Castle Rock, isn't at all transparent with his customers about what he is offering...and the final prohibitive price they will be expected to pay.  With each person entering his shop, Gaunt presents something that he knows will ensnare them to serve him as he practices a kind of evil hypnosis to make whatever they buy seem priceless.  With each "sale", besides a nominal, cheap cash payment, he demands of each a "small prank" that they are to play on another citizen...usually someone they don't know too well.  There is one individual, Sheriff Alan Pangborn (who appeared in an earlier Stephen King novel The Dark Half) whom Gaunt fears for his skepticism and integrity.  But will Pangborn succumb to his own "needful thing" in the end?  I guess it's about time for me to shut up about the plot so as not to give away too much about this book in case you haven't yet read it and might like to...

In Stephen King stories the characters often spew out profanities and the violence can get to be quite gory.  That having been said, he is an outstanding "character" writer in that he probes deep into their minds and what ultimately motivates their actions.  His heroes are typically vulnerable and flawed...making them realistic and believable, even if the surrounding circumstances and events seem resoundingly unreal.  There is almost always a morality play going on in his fiction (especially the novels), with good and evil being real forces that work their respective wills in the world through the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the characters.  His books in this way are quite fascinating...there are several more besides Needful Things that I intend to read again, especially 11/22/63, Lisey's Story, Insomnia, and It...not to mention the entire Dark Tower series...