King's second published book introduces features that crop up often in the rest of his work — a writer protagonist, a small Maine town with local colour, adults reckoning with repressed childhood-nightmares-turned-reality. In the novel, writer Ben Mears returns to his hometown, Jerusalem's Lot, around the same time as another strange visitor. Turns out this visitor is a vampire, and it's up to Ben to stop the whole town from being turned into vampires, too. 'Salem's Lot is a classic story, energized by King's singular ability to build out a sense of place and inhabit it with distinct characters who are easy to root for.