“Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” sayeth the Lord.

Someone forgot to remind the protagonists about that verse. Whether it’s a corpse or a conscience, an abused author or a suspicious spouse, Stephen King’s latest four short(er) stories all deal with the theme of retribution.

The title of the collection is fitting: these are dark tales—but seriously, what did you expect from Stephen King? This is his best work in years. In them he demonstrates his understanding of the human psyche by placing average characters into atrocious circumstances to see how they would react.

Like his earlier collection, “Different Seasons” which included gems like “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Body” (a.k.a. “Stand By Me”), I suspect at least there of these stories will soon be remade as films—for better or for worse. The stories are simple yet powerful. I would love to see Tarantino take a shot at “1922”, a story about a brutal murder and a tortured conscience.

These sort of stories stick with you. You’ll have something to mull over in your mind when you finally put the book down in the wee hours of the a.m.

King, Stephen. Full Dark, No Stars. Scribner, 2010.