Joyland

Joyland is a novel by the American writer Stephen King, published by Hard Case Crime in 2013. It was the second book he wrote for that imprint, after The Colorado Kid, and it first appeared in paperback, with a limited hardcover edition following a week later.

The book is set in North Carolina in the summer of 1973 and is told by a college student, Devin Jones, who takes seasonal work at a small amusement park called Joyland. His jobs are the ordinary ones that keep a park running: maintenance, carrying the mascot costume, looking after children and learning the routines of a place where the same families come back every year. The park also carries the memory of a killing, and the story of what happened there is what Devin takes away with him when the summer ends. King wrote the novel for an imprint that publishes crime fiction in the style of the old paperbacks, and it was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original in 2014.

The book is set among the working people of a seaside amusement park rather than the supernatural horrors the author is best known for, and the crime at the centre of it is investigated by an amateur who has no authority and a great deal of time.