It starts of with the opening of a new shop: Needful Things. It’s a shop run by Leland Gaunt, he claims to have the thing you always wanted. The price however is not only in money, you have to do something as well. The thing you have to do seems innocent on his own, but when the things get connected...
Brian Rusk is the first to come, but quickly the rest of the village has bought something. Everyone except the sheriff, Alan Pangborn, a guy who is amazingly good at the art of conjuring magic. He also is haunted by the death of his wife and son and seeks comfort by Polly Chalmers who always has pain in her hands. Brian Rusk’s task is to put dirt on the sheets of someone a few blocks away. The woman who owns the sheets blames someone else. Soon everyone blames everyone for some act they didn’t do. And by the book’s end the whole is an hysterical and psychotic mass. Leland Gaunts plan seemed to have worked.
Needful Things is a very good book. The characters are great. Alan Pangborn is the down to earth sheriff who sees all the things happen, but still has his mind on the dead of his wife and son so much things still can go wrong. Leland Gaunt is the best character in my opinion, the shrewd bad guy who enjoys to see his plan doing his job. A nice touch is the changing of the colour of his eyes. Also the minor characters are good, you can see them turn evil.
This book has a great plot, you see everything going from bad to worse and wonder whenever it will stop. Stephen King keeps you in suspense until the last page. The book is not really horror, but horror is the genre it comes closest to. It’s kind of a funny story when you think of it and definitely weird and vague. What the book is all about is that people will do anything for their greatest desire. This makes it a good story with some nice horror scenes and a tremendous ending.