One of King's very best, and do I dare use the word 'masterpiece'? I think so, because this terror does not deal with demons or vampires or the devil. It is much more psychological based fear. The real horror comes from the fact that a crippled man lays helpless on the bed of a strong, healthy, mentally able, and quite deranged woman. She (Annie Wilkes) is his 'Number 1 Fan'. He is Paul Sheldon, an author who gets into a serious car accident in the country and almost dies. But Annie is there to rescue him, and King established in the first twenty pages that she is not all smiles and sunshine. Is in fact, quite dangerous, and there isn't a thing Paul can do, because he is injured and helpless, and her house is in the middle of the country, nice and remote. She has the power to let him live or die, and she can kill him whenever she wants. This, plus the fact that Annie is crazy and very well COULD kill him is where the terror lies in this book. This is a duel between the injured and the healthy, a battle of wits, that of which the advantage is not in the favour of the good guy.One of Kings greatest, 'Misery' is about the price of fame, and that sometimes the rescue can be far more excrutiating than the accident itself.