Books: The Colorado Kid By Stephen King (2005)

For the longest time, I could not find a clean version of this Stephen King novel. First released in 2005 under the Hard Case Crime imprint (King has released two more under this imprint since then, 2013’s Joyland and 2021’s Later) and only released as a mass market edition, I found finding a fresh copy difficult. Most retailers at the time, including my beloved Borders, no longer had the book after its very quiet initial release. Hard Case Crime, of course, does not have the ability to print massive quantities of their original paperback titles, so this book quickly sold out and stores could not order more. Over the years, including my relocation from the Chicago area to the Los Angeles area, I tried to find a copy –mostly through used bookstores (finding “clean” copies online proved fiscally problematical). But when I did find a copy on occasion, most were in bad condition. I wanted a copy that may have been read, but looked perfect. A few years ago –I can’t remember when- I eventually came upon a first-printing used edition in almost new condition (I’m not sure if it was even read). But then a dilemma set in. While I have no problem reading his hardcover editions (and they’re not truly collectible) of King’s books, when it comes to this Hard Case Crime mass market edition, it’s hard to keep them in good shape.

But I finally found a used edition that allowed me to read this book with no worries of damaging my better edition.

The gist of the book concerns a 25-year-old mystery. On Moose-Look, a small island off the Maine coast, in a restaurant called The Grey Gull, The Weekly Islander editor Dave Bowie and the newspapers founder, Vince Teague, are discussing some unsolved crimes and oddities that exist within the coastal Maine area and islands that dot the area with Stephanie McCaan, a mainlander who has taken up residence on the island. She eventually asks if the veteran reporters have ‘ever come across a real unexplained mystery’. After a relocation back to the newspapers offices, Dave and Vince take turns recounting a strange incident and investigation some two decades in the past. On April 24, 1980, two teenagers stumbled across a man's body, early in the morning. Slumped against a trash can, and carrying no identification, the body bore no clear indicators of foul play. Cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation, as a large chunk of steak was extracted from the victim's throat. But every potential clue leads to small revelations, and bigger mysteries. Though the investigation is lightly bungled, everything seems inexplicable, from how the fish-dinner stomach contents could line up with his ferry boat crossing, to the single Russian coin in his pocket, and the pack of cigarettes missing one cigarette when the autopsy indicated he was not a smoker. Now Vince and Dave, with newbie Stephanie, begin to ferret out all the answers they can from the facts of the 25-year-old investigation, and then speculate on what might have happened.

Ultimately, King’s The Colorado Kid is a more a meditation on the nature of true mysteries, than a crime novel. And you’re really never sure if a crime actually happens here, and that’s the point of some stories and why most never hear of them –and why some become town legends. There is nothing truly supernatural here as well, beyond a few comments about strange lights and other unexplained things that have happened on the island or near the small towns around the area (and it was these loose mentions that inspired writers Jim Dunn and Sam Ernst use as springboard to create the Syfy TV series Haven, which ran for 78 episodes between 2010 and 2015). But while King adds more and more layers to the mystery of The Colorado Kid, the more you turn the pages, you remember, as he already pointed out early in the book, that while something’s do get answers, there is no true solution as how a man form Colorado ended up dead on a beach on a small island off the coast of Maine.

Cheated? Maybe, but again, King points out there are times when a story does not get wrapped up on the final page.