A Death

"A Death" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the March 9, 2015 issue of The New Yorker, and collected in the November 3 collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. In his "Introduction" to the latter book, King suggests that he was somewhat inspired by The Hair of Harold Roux (1975), a novel by Thomas Williams, which King describes as the best book about writing ever written.

Set in the Dakota Territory, 1889, the story describes the arrest, trial, and conviction of Jim Trusdale, a simple-minded rancher's son, for a crime he may not have committed.