By Reason of Insanity by Shane Stevens - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - April 8, 1979

I was searching for a different ad when I stumbled across this full page one for Shane Stevens' By Reason of Insanity.

I had no idea this book even existed until, just over a decade later, I read Stephen King's afterward to The Dark Half. That is where King shared his admiration for Stevens' body of work, writing, "These [books], where the so-called 'criminal mind' and a condition of irredeemable psychosis interweave to create their own closed system of perfect evil, are three of the finest novels ever written about the dark side of the American dream." King recommended Stevens' books only to those readers "with strong stomachs and stronger nerves."

Sold! 

Only in 1989/1990 there were no editions of Stevens' books to be found, anywhere. This situation was finally resolved in 1997, or thereabouts, when Carroll and Graf reissued Stevens' books, with King's praise for them plastered across their covers, of course.

That is when I was able to crack open By Reason Of Insanity and learn that King was not overselling the material with that strong stomach and nerves disclaimer. By Reason Of Insanity ends with a confounding gut punch of a reveal that, to this very day, makes a heavy knot of dread form in my stomach, sends a chill up my spine, and makes my skin want to crawl off my body and hide in a corner.