World Literature

Return to the dark side … Stephen King, whose novel Revival will mark a return to the horror genre. Photograph: Steve Schofield

It said: "In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church … When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.

"Jamie has demons of his own … In his mid-30s – addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate – Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil's devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings."

Revival will be published simultaneously on November 11 by Scribner in the US and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. Mr Mercedes – which is about a retired policeman being taunted by a murderer – will be published in early June.

Two novels a year is par for the course for a writer who shows no sign of slowing down as he enters his late 60s. Last year he published Dr Sleep in the autumn and a smaller novel, Joyland, in the summer.

A spokeswoman for Hodder said Mr Mercedes was unusual for King in that it was a straight thriller. King himself described it as his first hard-boiled detective book. The spokeswoman added: "Revival is much more the heartland of Stephen King."