Under the Dome by Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton Ltd)
Ex-veteran Dale Barbara’s (Barbie) exit from the small town of Chester’s Mill is cut short when a mysterious invisible barrier suddenly drops over the town.

In seconds a woodchuck is sawed in half, a woman loses her hand and the town selectman’s wife, Claudette Sanders’s plane explodes as it crumples against what seems like an invisible shield.

With the town’s folk cut off from the outside world the army searches for an inside man to liaise with.  An unwilling Barbie is given the job and he is forced to take the position and search for a reason behind the sudden appearance of the Dome.

Unfortunately the town’s second selectman, Big Jim Rennie has other plans and begins to use the Dome as a tool in his relentless plot at political and spiritual power over the town.

As the town’s resources begin to deplete and its children have premonitions of a petrifying Halloween, Barbie, with an odd-bunch of townspeople, are forced to confront Big Jim and his renegade of bullies.

Like the Lord of the Flies on crack, King has created a world where your fear of the unknown dims in comparison to the horror of what humans can do to each other when they are bound by fear and the relentless abuse of those who have power and crave more.

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