ROSE MADDER doesn't rate near the top of all the Stephen King books I've read. Only one part near the 300-page mark was quite a page turner, but that tense feeling it elicited didn’t last long enough.

A 32-year-old woman named Rosie (not Rose Madder, a color) has been married for 14 years to an abuser, appropriately named Norman because he's also insane. And he is a police detective.

One day she finally leaves their home in an unnamed state and takes a bus to an unnamed Midwestern state. There she finds help and is beginning to get her new life together.

But crazy Norman uses his police training to look for her. Most of ROSE MADDER is about his search and find and Rosie's response.

Stephen King is normally such a great writer, this book, with its silly boring stretches, surprised me. There is nothing wrong with the premise, but he could have made it so much better!

The parts taken up with Norman's viewpoint (italicized) certainly emphasize his insanity, but they are overly long and repetitive. The rest of ROSE MADDER is better, but too much of it is spent inside a painting. While everyone knows that King can deal well with life inside a painting (or a drain or a hole in the ground, etc.), he doesn't in this case. It is too ridiculous.

ROSE MADDER was published in 1995, but I had never heard of it for more than 10 years. Now I know why.