The Outsider book vs. TV show
*Spoilers Ahead*
If you like King's more recent Bill Hodge's Mr. Mercedes series, you'll love Stephen King's The Outsider. In fact, Holly Gibney makes a reprise in his book/TV show and shines as a character all on her own. The Outsider takes you into a crime that seems impossible, and as the investigation keeps going, the story keeps getting weirder and weirder.
It introduces us to a brutal murder and molestation of a child that a hiker finds in the woods. When eyewitness testimony and his fingerprints point to beloved baseball coach Terry Maitland, he is as surprised as can be. But even though detective Ralph Anderson has him arrested in front of his friends and family during a game, he is more than sure that he committed the crime. That is until a tape reveals that during the time of the murder he was at a teacher's conference in Cap City.
The investigation unravels from there and it challenges everything that Ralph and his investigating team thought that they knew about crime - until Holly shows up. If you read the Bill Hodges books, you would know that she ran into strange suspects like Brady Hartsfield before, so this situation was nothing new to her. By taking Holly's direction challenged the group, and it might have just been what they needed to get them on the right track.
The story takes several twists and turns and as it dives deeper into this strange world, we want to read and watch more. This is one of King's best modern books, as he makes his characters and situations feel so real you can actually see them happening. For everything that is close to the book in the HBO Max TV show, there are things that they adapted or added. The list below tells what they changed. I would highly recommend reading the book though as well, as I believe the book is even better than this strong ten-episode mini series that is just as addicting.