With a few exceptions (most notably The Shining), I consider Stephen King's horror stories to be largely mediocre, whilst his thriller work tends to be much more convincing and engaging. Case in point is this collection of four novellas, which consists of three excellent thriler stories and one dud horror.

The first story is entitled "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", and is close to identical to the oft-brutal but ultimately uplifting sleeper-hit film of the same (shortened) name. It is the tale of a man, Adey Dufresne, who finds himself doing life in a 30s US Penitentiary for a crime he swears he didnt commit, chronicling his struggle to survive physically and spiritually in the big house and his friendshipwith Red, a wise old con and a man who can "get things".

The second story is entitled "The Body" and is the story that the film "Stand By Me" is absed upon, whereupon a bunch of hard-up schoolboys with troubled backgrounds from 50s Maine go on an expedition to find a dead body that lies hidden in the woods. The story is an uncompromising, engaging and believable rites of passage tale that makes for stirring yet not overly sentimental reading.

Apt Pupil meanwhile is the story of a blue eyed all-american kid who becomes fascinated by an old man at the end of his street after discovering that he is an ex SS Officer, gradually becoming sucked into a sinister world of sadism and morbid perversity as his obsession with this spectre of the Third Reich grows and grows. Whilst quite cliche, this story is once again gripping if less believable, with a powerful ending to finish it off.

"The Breathing Method" concerns a gentleman's club that leads to another dimension, and whilst a great concept the story turns out to be a clunky sub-Lovecraftian affair that is neither engaging nor convincing, cominga cross more like a work inprogress then a finished tale.

Despite the weakness of the fourth story however, Different Seasons includes some of King's best non-horror writing and is definitely worth picking up.