Ok so this one is maybe slightly better than The Talisman? As I continue to make my way through The Dark Tower series, I've taken a couple of breaks to read some of the relevant related novels that fall outside of the core books. After completing both of the Peter Straub-Steven King co-authored books, I have to say I'm not sure I fully understand their relevance to King's multiverse. Perhaps more importantly, I found both books to be ponderous. That said, I do think that Black House was, at least in some ways, an improvement on The Talisman. But not in all ways...I'm conflicted.

Black House is the story of an adult Jack Sawyer. After spending his 20s as a big shot cop in Los Angeles, Sawyer retires at 31 to a small town in Wisconsin for unknown reasons. However, he's quickly drawn back into law enforcement as a mysterious killer called the Fisherman begins to abduct children. As someone who is not used to detective novels, I found myself mostly pleasantly surprised by that part of this story. The Fisherman does absolutely horrible things that feel scarily possible in the real world. Beyond the villain, the way the fear of his crimes strikes the town and undermines their faith in the police is also terrifying. The largest downside to this story is its length. I found the entire middle of the book to be slow and plodding.

While the villain is interesting, I did not find myself all that connected to the broader cast. Although King is amazing at building a town, I sometimes find it difficult to get invested enough to care about all its inhabitants, so this critique may be on me. However, I will point out that King and Straub use a narrative style for large chunks of this story that is distracting and often confusing. While sometimes the book is written in a close third person past narrative, it often shifts to a first person plural present (we do this, we see that, etc.).

Before closing, I will mention that this book is probably the most Dark Tower connected story I've read yet. Although I found the main through line of Black House to be a little muddy, the chapter where we hear about Roland's role in stopping the Crimson King was highly engaging. The next book up in my read through is The Wastelands, and I can't wait to see where the journey will take me in that entry.