Critically acclaimed, The Outsider (2018) is one of Stephen King’s later works, the 58th novel of 63, in addition to 20 novellas, over 120 short stories, and five nonfiction books. King has been one of the most prolific and popular writers of the late 20th century. Best known as a horror writer, King has a strong crossover appeal to readers outside the genre, with writing that spans and blurs the boundaries between horror, supernatural, suspense, mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. He has won more than 30 awards for his fiction. His books and short stories have been made into 39 films (with another 16 planned as of 2022) and 13 television series (seven more in planning). He has written nine screen adaptations himself and made cameo or voice appearances in 11 movies, including one in which he played himself. The Outsider was made into a 10-part HBO television series starring Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn.

This study guide references the Simon & Schuster Kindle edition.

Plot Summary

The story opens with Detective Ralph Anderson outside the Flint City ballpark preparing to arrest Terry Maitland for the most heinous child murder in Oklahoma’s history. His evidence is absolutely beyond question. Ralph might have cut a few corners in the investigation, but multiple witnesses saw Terry; he hardly even seemed to try to hide his crime. Ralph’s officers arrest Terry in front of over 1,000 people at the ballpark, loudly announcing that he is being arrested for the murder of Frankie Peterson. Terry claims to have a watertight alibi for the time of the murder. He was at an English teachers’ conference in Cap City with three unimpeachable witnesses.

Terry’s lawyer, Howie Gold, hires investigator Alec Pelley to collect evidence to support Terry’s alibi. Alec locates a videotape from a local TV station that shows Terry at a lecture by mystery writer Harlan Coben at the time the murder was committed. Ralph himself goes to Cap City to confirm Terry’s alibi and finds Terry’s fingerprints at a bookstore near the conference venue. They now have two sets of equally persuasive evidence saying that Terry was in two places at once. Ralph and district attorney Bill Samuels decide to go ahead with the case rather than losing face by dropping it.

Frankie Peterson’s family is deteriorating. His mother has an emotional breakdown and a fatal heart attack. His father can’t manage cooking, housekeeping, or funeral arrangements. Those tasks fall to Frankie’s older brother, Ollie, who is just a teenager himself and snaps under the strain.

On the morning of the arraignment, Ralph arrives at the courthouse with Terry to find a mob calling for Terry’s blood. Ralph notices a man with what appears to be severe burn scars all over his face and another man carrying a newspaper bag and wearing a knitted cap. The man in the cap pulls a gun from the newspaper bag, and Ralph recognizes him as Ollie Peterson. Ollie fatally shoots Terry before Ralph shoots him. In the aftermath, Ralph feels guilt for his role in both deaths.

After Terry’s arrest, his youngest daughter, Grace, sees a man with a “Play-Doh face and straws for eyes” outside her second-floor bedroom window. The same entity appears at the Petersons’ house to watch while the last surviving member of the family, Frank Sr., tries to hang himself and winds up alive but brain-dead.

The Maitland case is supposed to be closed, but evidence continues coming to light. State police have traced the origins of a white van that was found near the murder site. The van had been stolen in New York and abandoned in Dayton, Ohio, around the time Terry and his family were in Dayton visiting Terry’s father in a memory care facility. Ralph persuades Terry’s wife, Marcy, to talk to him. She doesn’t remember anything remarkable about their trip. Terry’s oldest daughter, Sarah, mentions that her father had a scratch on his hand that was bad enough to need a bandage.

With Ralph on leave, Detective Jack Hoskins is called back from vacation and sent out to a crime scene in an old barn; the barn’s owner has found the bloody clothes that “Terry” was wearing at the time of the murder. Hoskins is lazy and incompetent and stops off for a few drinks on the way. By the time he arrives at the barn, the crime scene technicians are gone. He looks around the barn and feels an unidentifiable presence. Something touches him on the back of the neck, and he flees the barn with the back of his neck burning.

Ralph’s subordinate, Detective Sergeant Yune Sablo, tells Ralph what they found at the barn. In addition to the clothes Terry was seen wearing, they found unidentified organic residue and fingerprints, some of which are Terry’s. The other prints are blurred and could be Terry’s, but they wouldn’t hold up in court.

Jack wakes in the middle of the night. The stinging on the back of his neck has turned into something like a bad sunburn. In the bathroom, he sees a shape behind his shower curtain. The figure wraps its hand around the edge of the curtain, and Ralph sees the word “CANT” tattooed across the backs of the fingers. The shadow tells Jack he has cancer, and if he wants it to go away, Jack will have to do whatever the figure demands of him. Jack passes out and wakes in his bed in the morning. Gracie Maitland also receives another visit from the “Play-Doh man,” which appears in her bedroom and tells her to tell Detective Anderson to stop investigating.

Howie’s investigator, Alec Pelley, contacts private investigator Holly Gibney in Dayton and asks her to trace the white van that was supposedly abandoned and confirm the Maitland family’s movements while they were there. On hearing the details of the case, Holly recognizes the modus operandi of what she calls an “outsider.” She quickly confirms that the van had been abandoned and re-stolen before the Maitlands arrived in Dayton.

With some research, Holly learns that an orderly from the memory care facility where Terry’s father lives was once arrested for the brutal murders of two little girls and subsequently committed suicide, as did his mother. The details of the case are eerily similar to Terry’s—including the fact that the supposed perpetrator was apparently in two places at the same time. Holly finds that the orderly was at the facility at the same time as Terry Maitland and that while walking past Terry, he slipped, grabbed Terry’s wrist, and cut him with a fingernail.

Jeannie Anderson wakes in the night and goes downstairs to find a stranger seated in the shadows of her living room. The stranger tells her to get Ralph to stop prying into the case or bad things are going to happen to everyone involved. The figure shows her the tattoos on its knuckles: “MUST.” Jeannie faints and wakes in her bed in the morning. She is now convinced that Terry Maitland’s double must be supernatural. Ralph rejects her belief as nonsense.

Holly travels to Flint to persuade the Flint investigators that the murderer they are looking for is an outsider—a supernatural entity like a vampire or bogeyman. Most of the team begins to open up to the possibility, but Ralph steadfastly rejects it. He connects the cut on Terry’s hand with one of the witness interviews he did before arresting Terry: Claude Bolton, a bouncer who encountered Terry at a strip club, had shaken Terry’s hand and received a cut from Terry’s fingernail. Ralph also remembers that Claude had something tattooed across the backs of his fingers, and Jeannie’s description of the previous night’s intruder matches Claude Bolton. However, Bolton is currently in Texas. A Texas state trooper checks on Claude’s movements and confirms that he was at his mother’s house in Texas when the intruder appeared in the Anderson living room—but also that Claude has the words “CANT” and “MUST” tattooed across the backs of his fingers.

Holly hypothesizes that the outsider can project an avatar of itself, but that doing so must weaken it. The outsider can absorb the thoughts of the person it is mimicking. By sending the state trooper to see Claude, the investigators have alerted the outsider to the fact that they are getting closer. The outsider tells Jack Hoskins to get to Texas ahead of the investigators and guard the entrance to the Marysville Hole, the cave system in which the outsider is hiding.

Ralph, Holly, Detective Sablo, Howie Gold, and Alec Pelley fly to Marysville, Texas, and talk to Claude Bolton and his mother, Lovey. They learn about the cave system and realize it is the perfect place for the outsider to hide while it transforms into Claude’s shape. The next day, the investigators go out to the cave entrance, but Jack Hoskins is already there, hiding with a sniper rifle. He kills Howie and Alec immediately and wounds Detective Sablo, but not critically. Leaving Sablo to give them cover fire, Holly and Ralph run for the back entrance to the cave system. Jack intercepts them, and Ralph must shoot him before Jack can shoot Holly.

Ralph and Holly enter the cave and find their way to the central cavern, where the outsider waits, looking like an unfinished Play-Doh model of Claude Bolton. Ralph’s intention was to shoot it as soon as he came into range, but the cave is unstable, and a shot could bring down the ceiling. Holly goads the outsider into lunging at her, and she surprises it with the improvised sap—a sock filled with ball bearings. She crushes the outsider’s head, and it melts into a heap of squirming red worms. Holly and Ralph return to the parking lot where detective Sablo is waiting.

Samuels announces to the press that Terry Maitland has been cleared of the murder charge. He doesn’t mention the fact that all the DNA evidence that implicated Terry is disintegrating. Afterward, Ralph still has nightmares about the red worms. He and Holly formed a profound and lasting friendship.