Dolores Claiborne, book review. (Stephen King)

Dolores has a story to tell, her story, but don't think she's about to admit to killin' that bitch Vera, 'cause she ain't, she din't; she did however kill her husband, but everyone's known that for years, haven't they?

Told in one long continuous monologue, with no chapter breaks, breaks in the text, and with no interruptions from the policemen and woman who are present at her confession, this novel is a masterpiece.
Dolores is a normal, run of the mill, wife, mother, carer and all around nice person, but when Vera Donovan dies and she . . . better not give the story away here . . . the locals start to talk, point the finger at her. After all, Delores was the last person to see Vera alive, the person that spent the last few decades looking after Vera, listening to all her vile diatribe, and the person whose husband mysteriously fell down a well some years earlier.
As Dolores recants her story we fall under her spell, and so sincere is her confession that you don't think to question what might be true or false, whether her husband really was that bad, whether he really did hit on her, do the things she says he did to . . . well, we just have no way of knowing, we just trust the narrator and go with it, believing all that we are told.
It wasn't until later, whilst making notes for this blog post, that I realised this, that not once whilst I was reading the book did I question what Dolores was saying, that it might not be true, and here in is the cleverness of the author, making me question it, think about the story, the characters, days and weeks after I thought I'd finished.

Of course that question is still there, did she or didn’t she do it, and every now and then I will turn it over in my mind and wonder.

Four well deserved stars then and another King favourite.