Books: Holly By Stephen King (2023)

“When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down. Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless. Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors.”

Early in his prolific career, I read an article that took King to task for setting his tales of terror in a very specific period in history or, if I may borrow a Doctor Who phrase, a fixed point in time. The general complaint was that by using pop cultural references, by using current brand names, by saying what year the tales are set, his books become less universal, less likely to stand the test of time. That three hundred years from now (if we survive), people reading his tales will not understand the references he makes. As someone pointed out recently on a Facebook page dedicated to King, they had recently watched the 1976 movie version of King’s first novel, 1974’s Carrie. The poster said the film held up because it plot could take place today, nearly fifty years after the publication and film, that because the book and film avoided pop cultural references, it holds up.

Here with Holly, King sets his tale at a very exact era in recent American history –the COVID years. He also takes on a former president he has been very vocal about in disliking, along with that former president’s acolytes. COVID plays a central part of the story, which is set after the events of the novella If it Bleeds. Holly, who through various tales, has grown from a shy, recluse woman on the autism spectrum, to a brave and ethical women running the private investigation company Finders Keepers, which was started by her late friend, Bill Hodges.

King, also, has never been one to keep quiet his political feelings. They’re there through most of his works, sometime subtle, but of recent years, mostly there on the page (see Gwendy’s Final Task for where that really busted through). So the virus and Donald Trump become secondary background characters in King’s dark and often creepy tale of murder and cannibalism. But for some of his Constant Readers, this open display of political theater has angered them. Some, like maybe King’s early critics, hate the idea that the legendary writer has decided to add his liberal politics to what should be an horror tale that could’ve taken place in 1974 or 2023. That it’s no longer a universal tale, but a story (maybe a historical genre tale?) set in one period of time and place. Who knows if this is good or bad? King does not care –he’s now 75, very rich, and no longer needs to pander to anyone but himself.

Those aspects aside, the book is good, with villains you want to hate. Holly Gibney remains a character you love or hate, though, but she is growing and that’s good. The more the character evolves the more real she becomes. Both Jerome and his sister Barbara become more supporting characters here, though both go through some dramatic personal changes (and writers like to have characters that write, so I can see why King took the Robinson’s in that direction. I mean, both his sons have become writers, and his wife has had novels published, so it only seems logical these characters move this way as well.

Overall, Holly is a good mixing of horror, mystery, historical realness, and procedural private eye work. It may never reach a wider audience than his Constant Readers, but King remains at the top of his game. King has stated he plans a large short story collection planned for 2024, and at least one more adventure featuring Holly. And what of a second sequel to The Talisman? King has said he has ideas, including a long letter sent by co-writer Peter Straub before he passed last year with even more ideas for a third book. But King seems a bit unsure at the moment. Perhaps, it’s because a third book would mean a few years of commitment and lengthy book, as well. The “epic” books are on the way out, as publishers are less and less interested in long books.

But it still would be worth the wait.

Books: End of Watch By Stephen King (2016)

End of Watch by Stephen King brings to conclusion a trilogy of novels that started out as the author’s foray into the mystery/thriller genre with Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers and wraps up with some elements of the first two books, along with King’s patented doses of the supernatural that could remind many of his blockbuster first book, Carrie. 

Picking up about a year or so after the events of Finders Keepers, we find retired detective Bill Hodges, who now with his sidekick Holly runs their unauthorized private investigation agency, is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Given only months to live, he finds himself drawn into a recent spree of suicides. All the dead are connected by a common thread: each of them have in the past been in contact with Brady Hartsfield, the notorious Mr. Mercedes who, six years earlier, plotted to blow up a rock concert venue packed with teenagers. Hodges and Holly thwarted Brady's plans and left the killer in a vegetative state from which he never recovered. However, many of the staff in the hospital where Brady now resides believe that he is recovering at an impossible rate, and that he may be faking his injuries to avoid trial...except that everyone who gets too close to proving this suspicion seems to disappear. After his head injury, Brady found himself gaining new abilities, including the power to move small objects with his mind and the ability to enter the bodies of certain people susceptible to his mental domination. Using these tools, Brady has been crafting a plan to finish his murderous work by creating a hypnotic video game app that heightens the user's susceptibility. Once the users are in Brady's control, he will use the app to dominate their minds and persuade them to commit suicide. The targets are the very teenagers who escaped death when Brady's plan to destroy the concert venue failed. Brady's ultimate goal, however, is to lure Hodges into the game and exact revenge. Brady uses the bodies of both a corrupt neurosurgeon and a hospital librarian (“he’s become a living Russian nesting doll”) as both puppets and red herrings to do his dirty work and to misdirect the police while he makes his final move to destroy Hodges, all the while unaware that Hodges is already racing the clock against his own death.

As noted, End of Watch borrows the telekinesis theme King used so effectively in Carrie, though while that novel used it as a metaphor for suppressed emotional issues, here it becomes more of a pretext to get Brady, whose body has been slowly atrophying over the years of his interment at Kiner Brain Injury Clinic, out of bed and free him from the confines of room 217. King does create a clever science fiction McGuffin which enables Brady to “leap” into the minds and bodies of his victims (“look inside Babineau and there is Dr. Z. Look inside Dr Z and there, pulling all the levers, is Brady Hartsfield”). Once “inside” he becomes like a computer virus, forcing people to do his evil bidding and slowly unleashing his master plan to get revenge on Hodges: he’s manipulates the kids through his mind control, the ones who survived his failed attack at the ‘Round Here Concert, to commit suicide. 

For me, the book is not as strong as the previous two (Hartsfield is not truly an evil character, more like a spoiled, petulant teenager, though the theme of teen suicide is a bit unseemly), and yet continues King’s tendency of late to write stories that feature characters and situations that mirror real life, with pain being one of many recurring subjects. There has also been a definite shift in his style since the van that nearly killed him in 1999. And while always prolific, his output since then (both good and bad) seems to mean something, as if he is seeing the finish line. 

Books: Finders Keepers By Stephen King (2015)

Stephen King once again dips his pen (or word processor) into the concept of what an author owes his fans. In an age of Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook where writers can interact with their readers in a more stalky, and intimate way than even book signings and other appearances can give, Finders Keepers (the second entry in a trilogy that began with last years Mr. Mercedes) takes us deeper into that writer/reader relationship with book lover Morris Bellamy and his favorite writer, the Salingeresque John Rothstein. 

King does not cover up the fact that he is using Salinger as a model, as Rothstein lives in a small New Hampshire town some two miles from the nearest neighbor, and has been in recluse since publishing his last novel some eighteen years earlier -although he has continued to write. Because much like Salinger, Rothstein has filled up dozens of leather Moleskin notebooks with unpublished stories, including two novels featuring the troubled young man named Jimmy Gold -which he stashes in his safe along with some $24,000 in cash.

While Annie Wilkes of Misery could be called crazy, Morris Bellamy is far from that. He could be called smart, but like some of us, he becomes his worst enemy when things go rotten. Even though his mom is a celebrated author, Bellamy's life has been tough since his dad left them. But he found something to identify in Rothstein's character of Jimmy Gold and until that third book, Morris was in love. Now bent on confronting his hero writer, Bellamy (and two really stupid coconspirators) break into Rothstein's house. Of course, Morris wants answers, while Curtis and Freddy want the money. After being mocked by Rothstein, Morris shoots him dead and the three make off with the cash and the notebooks -though only one returns back to the old home town. 

And it's there, in what is described as “filthy little city that residents called the Gem of the Great Lakes,” Morris Bellamy's world unwinds. For he brags to the only person there he calls a friend, a bookseller of rare tomes, of what he did and what he has now in his possession. But Andrew Halliday is horrified at the news, which then sends Bellamy into a drunken' stupor and a blackout. When he awakens he realizes he's in jail. But while he's not there for three murders, he has committed a violent rape that will see him incarcerated for life. 

The first 157 pages are essentially a prologue, as King sets up the backstory that will follow. In those first quarter he flashes between 1978 and 2009 through 2014 where we meet the family who is now living in the house where Bellamy grew up. And the Saubers, Tom, his wife Linda and their kids Pete and Tina, seem more down on their luck than Morris. Tom was injured when a maniac drove a Mercedes into a crowd of people at a job fair, killing 8 and injuring countless others (which is the opening chapter of Mr. Mercedes) and that financial woes of the accident and the economy seem to be bringing their marriage to a close. But then Pete stumbles upon a trunk full of money and Moleskin notebooks and hatches a plan to give that money to his parents. He also discovers what is written in those notebooks and he too falls in love with Rothstein and the character of Jimmy Gold. But he soon realizes he has two never-published fourth and fifth books in that series and also learns the author sort of did a course correct on Gold -something that long imprisoned Morris Bellamy does not know about.

The back half of the book deals with Morris being paroled and when he goes back to his home town to discovers his stash is missing. This is also where we finally get reacquainted with  retired cop Kermit William ("Bill" to friends) Hodges who has formed his own repo company called Finders Keepers and employs Holly Gibney. Eventually Jerome Robinson returns from college to help investigate Pete (Tina is convinced Pete gave the money and is now scared her brother is in trouble). We also get a return visit of Mr. Mercedes himself, Brady Hartfield. This sub-plot is seemingly -and what appears to be a supernatural one at that- a small Easter egg for readers to know that a final confrontation between Hodges and Brady is to come in next years End of Watch (I'm not sure fans of crime fiction will like this development, especially after Mr. Mercedes was handed the 2014 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America). 

Of course, beyond Salinger there appears to other literary references within Finders Keepers, such as Rothstein's fiction trilogy of "The Runner”, “The Runner Sees Action”, and “The Runner Slows Down,” which evokes John Updikes Rabbit books. And Philip Roth lurks with the name of King's famous writer. In the end, this examination between writers and fans is always interesting for me. While I adore King and have not always been pleased with his works (Tommyknockers remains unread), I would never consider myself such a fan that I should end up stalking them or demanding they change the fates of characters.