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Booklist Reviews 2012 April #2*Starred Review* King's return to Mid-World, the alternate-reality setting of the seven-book Dark Tower saga, should gratify those who read the whole megillah, those who didn't, and those who never started it. It slots in between DT IV and V, Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla, and like the former, it's mostly an extended flashback to saga-hero Roland's early days as a gunslinger. Roland and his three companions must ride out a starkblast, a huge north wind that kills birds on the wing and topples whole forests with its polar breath. Roland whiles the wait away by recalling the time he had to eliminate a murderous shape-shifter ravaging a far-flung mining community. Relating that exploit entails telling an older story about a boy in a remote lumbertown whose dad is killed by a dragon, or so says his tree-cutting partner, who later convinces the boy's mother to marry him�and resumes drinking. If Roland's youthful adventure is a better western-style exploit than Wizard and Glass�and it is�11-year-old Tim Ross' quest for justice, which peaks during another starkblast, is the peer of such fantasy-adventure classics as Ruskin's The King of the Golden River, Macdonald's The Princess and the Goblin, and�dare one say it?�The Hobbit. This is King at his most beguiling and most literarily distinguished. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Master's return to a series fans have loved will bring readers into the library in droves. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.