The Outsider by Stephen King. Short summary

5 seconds

In a small town, a child is brutally murdered. A respected man, baseball coach Terry Maitland, is accused of the crime. But the accused claims he is innocent.

1 minute

A teenager is murdered in the Oklahoma City town of Flin City. The case is being investigated by Detective Ralph Anderson. Evidence indicates that the crime was committed by the coach of the kids’ baseball team, Terry Maitland. The suspect is arrested, but he claims he is innocent and was in another city at the time of the crime.

Before the trial, the murdered boy’s brother shoots Maitland. Tormented by guilt, Ralph Anderson searches for the real culprit. For help, he turns to his friends at a private agency. The detective discovers that Maitland was really out of town at the time of the murder, and investigators found the perpetrator’s clothes with strange fingerprints in the barn.

Maitland’s daughters keep seeing a strange man. Ralph discovers that a similar murder has been committed at the hospital for the insane and the suspect is also innocent. The killer turns out to be a creature, an Alien, capable of mimicking human appearance. With great difficulty Ralph manages to kill the Stranger, Terry Maitland is acquitted posthumously.