“The Outsider” added to Stephen King’s streak of more than 30 best-selling novels, topping the Sunday Times Bestseller’s list. The authenticity of character description and refined dialoguing gave the novel a tough layer of originality and realism.
Terry Maitland
Role: Terry Maitland is the coach of the Little Boy’s League baseball team. He is also an English teacher.
Key Info: Terry is arrested for murder after Detective Ralph Anderson learns from witnesses that he was with Frankie, who got murdered.
Being the father to two girls, Sarah and Grace, the coach of the Little Boys League, an English teacher, and a well-respected person in Flint City, Terry gets arrested for Frankie Peterson, an 11-year-old red-head boy’s murder. Though he tried to maintain his innocence throughout his predicament, he struggled to clear his name due to eyewitnesses and overwhelming DNA evidence against him. Soon, Frankie’s brother, Ollie, shoots and kills him.
Terry’s death was a tragedy to his family, but it felt like a blessing in disguise. The coach knew no one would believe him, no matter what he did or said. His death absolved him of the struggle of having to prove his innocence to people who demonized him.
Ralph Anderson
Role: Ralph Anderson is the primary protagonist of the story.
Key Info: Ralph is a Flint City PD Detective. He is the lead on Frankie’s murder case.
Ralph Anderson is a detective of the Flint City police department and is a fat and tall man in his early 50s. Being the lead detective in the murder case of Frankie Peterson, he believes that Frankie’s killer was none other than Terry Maitland due to the overwhelming evidence and the witnesses against the coach.
However, after leading a public arrest on Terry, Ralph doubts his guilt as footage of the coach in Cap City emerges, defending his alibi. Though he starts disbelieving the entire case, Ralph still refuses to accept that Terry may be innocent, but after the coach proclaims his innocence on his dying breath, Ralph’s doubt becomes more persistent.
Diving deeper into Terry’s case, Ralph discovers that what happened with Frankie’s murder had to be nothing short of abnormal and supernatural, and his doubt gets confirmed after meeting Holly Gibney.
The Outsider (El Cuco)
Role: El Cuco is the primary antagonist of the story.
Key Info: He is a strange monster that can take on the form of a person.
El Cuco is the main antagonist. Being an entity that takes the form of whoever he injures, he kills his victims, mainly children, horribly and spreads their fat over his body. The Outsider gets away with his murders by utilizing the law, which does not acknowledge the supernatural. He kills his victims in the appearance of a well-known person and uses this as a way to get away with killing, making the innocent victims pay for a crime they never committed.
Holly Gibney
Role: Holly is a private investigator from Finder’s Keepers.
Key Info: She backtracks and investigates Terry’s actions before Frankie’s murder. Her investigation leads to uncovering news of a nurse accused of double homicide.
Holly is a middle-aged woman with grey hair and pale skin. Alec Pelley, a retired police officer working for Howie Gold, Terry’s lawyer, hires her as a private investigator. Holly discovers that Terry’s case is similar to that of Heath Holmes, and she learns an evil entity she called The Outsider is responsible for the murders of both Frankie and the girls.
Frankie Peterson
Role: Frank Peterson is a member of the Little Boys League team.
Key Info: Frankie is raped and murdered, and Ralph begins investigating what happened when he sees the gruesome crime scene.
Without Frankie’s death, Flint City would have been just another average city with a Little Boys League. The Outsider committing the most heinous of crimes in Flint City scarred everyone and led to widespread distrust and fear.
Howie Gold
Role: Howie is Terry Maitland’s lawyer.
Key Info: He firmly believed Terry was innocent even when everyone thought otherwise.
Howie is a lawyer who believes Terry is innocent. He helps the coach and his wife, Marcy, navigate the legal grounds of the murder case. He is happy when video evidence of Terry being in Cap City emerges.
Howie hires Alec Pelly to help and tries his best to see that Terry leaves police custody. However, he is devastated when Ollie murders Terry. After learning of The Outsider, he teams up with Ralph, Holly, and Alec, but he dies.
Jack Hoskins
Role: Jack is one of the primary antagonists.
Key Info: He is Ralph’s co-worker and a Flint City PD detective.
Jack is a lazy and corrupt detective and an antagonist in the story. He encounters an entity who touches him when he arrives at a scene of interest concerning Terry’s case. The next day, he sees the entity, The Outsider, in his house, and it claims to have infected him with cancer.
Out of fear and a promise to get cured, Jack does The Outsider’s bidding and fulfills his wish to kill a group comprising Ralph, Holly, Howie, Alec, and Sable. He successfully kills two people, Howie and Alec, before Ralph kills him.
Alec Pelley
Role: Alec worked with Ralph and others to stop El Cuco.
Key Info: Alec Pelley is a retired police officer who works as a private investigator due to the guilt of putting innocent men behind bars.
Alec works as a freelance private investigator for Howie, Terry’s lawyer. After hiring Holly Gibney to help, he works with the rest of the group to uncover more about The Outsider. Alec, however, is killed by a psychotic Jack under the influence of The Outsider.
Marcy Maitland
Role: Marcy is Terry Maitland’s wife.
Key Info: Marcy cares for the children and house after her husband’s arrest.
Being the wife of Terry Maitland, the man accused of brutally murdering an 11-year-old boy, Marcy sticks beside her husband and fights to free him. Though her efforts go down the drain as Terry dies, she still works with Ralph, Howie, and the rest of the group to ensure that Terry is exonerated.
Ollie Peterson
Role: Ollie is Frankie’s older brother.
Key Info: After Frankie’s death, everything goes sour for his entire family.
Unable to handle the pain and with a growing rage for revenge, Ollie storms Terry’s arraignment, where he fires two shots at Terry, killing him. Ralph jumps to the rescue and kills Ollie, preventing any further casualty.
Claude Bolton
Role: Claude has a criminal history and a dodgy reputation.
Key Info: Claude was the next in line to be used by El Cuco to perpetrate a heinous crime.
After Terry’s death, Holly Gibney and the rest of the group deduce that The Outsider may have chosen the next victim to frame. They discover Claude Bolton is next as an inscription of CAN’T and MUST on The Outsider’s hands reveals his intentions.
Other characters from the book include Grace Maitland, Terry’s youngest daughter. Sarah Maitland. Jeannie Anderson, Ralph’s wife. Fred Peterson, Frankie and Ollie’s father, and Yune Sablo.
