Black House
Twenty years ago (in
The Talisman), a boy named Jack Sawyer travelled to a
parallel universe called The Territories to save his mother and her "twinner" from a premature and agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired
Los Angeles homicide detective living in the small town of French Landing, Wisconsin. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to awaken those memories. When a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by a real-life madman named
Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed "The Fisherman" and Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperienced force find him. This is one of King's many mainstream novels, which also include
Hearts in Atlantis and
Insomnia, that tie in with
the Dark Tower series.
The town of "French Landing" is said to be on the Mississippi River and on "Highway 35," characteristics which match (but do not uniquely identify) the real town of
Prairie du Chien.
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Abbalah The
Crimson King, or the force (evil) that the Crimson King propagates.
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Coppiceman A word which Jack uses to refer to
policemen, most notably himself. The word was taken from Wolfs' erroneous pronunciation of policeman in the previous book,
The Talisman.
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D'Yamba A magic word Jack uses that invokes the power of good.
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Opopanax Unknown. Although an Opopanax feather is found in the book
Wolves of the Calla.
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Twinner In this novel we learn the word twinner is similar to the Territories' word for harp. In Jack's mind this conjures up the image of two strings "a finger touch away".
