Misery Chastain is dead. Paul Sheldon has just killed her - with relief, with joy. Misery has made him rich; she was the heroine of a string of bestsellers. And now he wants to get on to some real writing.

That's when the car accident happens, and he wakes up in pain in a strange bed. But it isn't hospital. Annie Wilkes has pulled him from the wreck, brought him to her remote mountain home, splinted and set his mangled legs.

The good news is that Annie was a nurse and has pain-killing drugs. The bad news is that she has long been Paul's Number One Fan. And when she finds out what Paul had done to Misery, she doesn't like it. She doesn't like it at all.

Paul Sheldon used to write for a living. Now he's writing to stay alive.