The Mouse on the Mile

Book excerpt: The Green Mile, Stephen King’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel, was first published twenty years ago in six original paperback installments. Inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Tom Hanks about an innocent man on death row, The Green Mile is now available for the first time in e-serial form. The Mouse on the Mile is Volume Two. Paul Edgecombe’s story continues with the addition of two characters, one a new prisoner awaiting his own date with “Old Sparky,” Cold Mountain’s electric chair. He’s William “Wild Bill” Wharton, a killer with an aim to cause as much trouble as he can before his execution date. The other newcomer is a mouse. Called Steamboat Willy by the guards who first noticed him, he’s later renamed Mr. Jingles by Eduard Delacroix, another of the death row inmates who eventually takes in the mouse and makes him his pet—a bit of cold comfort for a man condemned to walk the Green Mile.