What is missing in The Girl Who Loved...?

[GNTLGNT]

It's back-story, a King trademark to add "flavor" to his stories...

[CloningStation]

I think the orginal poster was referring more about the person who actually called in the tip, rather than the actual rapist. You would think the guy who called in the tip was trying to throw off the cops so he could have his way with her or something. It was never really explored why he called in the tip in the first place. Maybe he just hated that rapist guy and wanted to have him hasseled?

No offence but in many stories we are introduced to characters where we don't always find out what happened to them in the end.

I would figure that since we know this character did not abduct Trisha, and she was eventually reunited with her family, then no further explanation of the abuser was needed. He may have abused others but Trisha was definitely not one of his victims, and the police would have no reason to charge him. Therefore Stephen King has no reason to offer any further explanation for his character. We as the reader are left to fill in those blanks.

That's just my reasoning though, and it may not be logical, I dunno.

[Pucker]

I got two things from the Ray Mazzerole side story in TGWLTG. First, it’s important to remember that there are people in the world who like to inject themselves into dramatic situations (as we have seen right here on our own fine chat forum) as a means of creating a “buzz” in their own lives that otherwise would not exist. The unidentified caller may have been a previous victim of Mazzerole’s or a relative of one, or someone who had a grudge against him for entirely different reasons. It doesn’t really matter. Its primary effect, though, is to complicate the search, and there is at least the suggestion that the effort being expended in the woods looking for Trisha may have been “back-burnered” a little bit while the police checked out the false tip. One of the things that is mentioned over and over again was how quickly and efficiently Trisha managed to get far away from where the searchers assumed she would be. The false tip could be seen as at least partially responsible for this being allowed to happen. Even at the end, the poacher who finds her (and knows exactly who she is) is amazed at where she is.

[Ben E Gas]

I beleive they explained that he had an aliby, but I could be wrong. I hadn't given that part much thought. I think he threw that in there to get you thinking that it might be that rapist that was stalking her.

[Ratsy]

hey dear Stephen and fans
the book is fantastic.
I quit taking SK's books from libraries and friends because i love to reread them, fully or partially, all the time.
but anyway, besides this book (as any other) is an adventure, i found one question unanswered after finishing:
who or what is he (it) who called police to tell about that guy, little girls raper?
why was that raper disappeared from the story afterwards?
why nothing was said about that caller?
mystery is mystery, but that part i think is missing?
or i think wrong?

This also bothered me...It almost seemed to me like SK started in a certain direction and then bailed on it...

I am also botherd by the fact that there was a chapter "the seventh inning stretch" but there was no "bottom of the seventh"...

Maybe "the bottom of the seventh" was edited out and contained some of the missing info that we were looking for...who knows?

[juanfernandes]

This never bothered me, I got the point of it. It wasn't a deliberate diversion.

From films and TV, you know that these kind of 'people' will get accused of something, by people that know what they are and want to get them in trouble, in the hopes that they get sent down for it. A way to pay for their crimes.

So for me, when it was (as we knew) revealed that he had not taken Trish, there was no need to continue with that branch of the story.