Firejournal 5

Moving into the final section of the book is really a joyful thing -- and a relief. King once tied readers down in Gerald's Game. Pinned with Jessie, the reader spent hours in a dark room as she struggled for freedom. He once pinned us in a car as a crazed dog circled it. In Firestarter, he locks the reader up in the deep inner rooms of The Shop.
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The Shop is not really a happy place to spend time. Full of not so bright hit men and equally moronic head-honchos. Hey, I've got to say once again how much I like the idea of a hit man (a guy who literally has blood on his hands) named OJ. The executives at the Shop spend their time trying to figure out ways to keep their government funding. Meanwhile, they fall prey one by one to Andy McGee's mind powers.
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An interesting note here, King has a character put his hand down a garbage disposal. Wonderful! In fact, the line that the hand was more pointed than a sharpened pencil stuck with me. But, I just saw this show on Food Network where they cut stuff up. And here's the deal: At least on that show, they said that you couldn't hurt your hand on a garbage disposal. I haven't tested this myself, and maybe the way they work has changed in the last 28 years.
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Office politics are also a beast at The Shop. Backstabbing and ego play center stage in this novel. If you work near John Rainbird, don't think those computer files are safe just because you password protected you computer. Hey, The Shop is a nasty enough environment to qualify it for a John Grisham novel (think The Firm). Big Brother and Orwell's 1984 continues to have heavy play in the book. Everything in the Shop is taped (at least in Charlie and Andy's rooms), giving even an indirect nod to the "tele-screen" in 1984.
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McGee's ability to "push" and "shove" people mentally is really the star of the book. Of course, the McGuffin, as Hitchcock would say, is Charlie's power to start fires, but it's Andy who drives the story. In fact, not only does Andy push and shove the folk at the shop, at one wonderful point in the book, he realizes he is going to have to "push" Charlie.
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King certainly spends his time building characters and making the reader more and more claustrophobic. By the time King is ready to knock down his final set of carefully placed domino's, the reader is anxious to see them go. Can he make this book end with a bang? I'll bet he can.