Finders Keepers

Stephen King’s latest novel, Finders Keepers, the second novel in the Bill Hodges Trilogy, returns us to the time and place of Bill Hodges, the former detective who featured largely in King’s Mr. Mercedes. This time, however, it takes quite a few chapters for our dear Det Ret to make the scene.  Instead the novel opens up alternating between two characters, young preteen Peter Saubers and a twenty-something ne’er-do-well, Morris Bellamy, with literary pretensions.  Fans of reclusive literary giants (Salinger comes to mind) may be sympathetic to Bellamy. Obsessed with the work of John Rothstein, famous for his “Runner” trilogy, Morris sets out to make right a perceived wrong.  Believing that Rothstein’s third book sells out his beloved Jimmy Gold (readers of Misery will recognize this particular bent), Bellamy seeks to both avenge, and possibly redeem, his literary hero, by executing the robbery and subsequent murder of Rothstein.  His research on the author’s habits (regular purchases of moleskin notebooks) pays off when the safe offers up not only 20,000 dollars in cash, but also a great number of meticulously filled notebooks in the author’s hand.  Before he is able to fulfill his obsessive desire to reopen the tale of Jimmy Gold, Morris is picked up and imprisoned for an unrelated crime. Fast-forward 20 years, and meet Peter Saubers, a pragmatic eavesdropper in a family that has literally been crippled by the crimes of Brady Hartsfield (the disturbed villain in Mr. Mercedes). Peter, watching his family’s downward spiral, is seemingly offered a miracle solution when he stumbles upon a half-exposed trunk on the vacant property near his home.  The boy’s choices, fueled by desperation and altruism, and the concurrent release of Morris Bellamy, whose fervor has been finely honed by 35 years of incarceration and abuse, lead to a few action-packed chapters.  However, as a long-time Stephen King fan, I was faintly disappointed in the novel, and its hardly surprising climax.  I felt it lacked the mystery that usually drives my frantic, last 100 pages, what’s-going-to-happen-now, binge reading. Despite this, it was nice to see Bill Hodges and his crew again, however briefly their appearances, and some goings-on with a famed catatonic hint at what could turn out to be a thrilling third installment. Overall, I would give the book a three-star review, but fans of King will likely enjoy it or hate it, as fans (Annie Wilkes and Morris Bellamy would understand) often do.

Revival by Stephen King

One of the things I’ve always liked about Stephen King novels, is the suspension of disbelief they inevitably engender.  Pragmatic by nature, I’m the last one to throw spilled salt, or avoid cracks on the sidewalk. However, give me five hundred pages of a good King novel and I’m turning on the hallway lights, checking door locks, and just generally feeling a little creeped out (in the most pleasant of ways I assure you).  The power his books have over me lies, in large part, with his ability to create such fully-fleshed characters, women and men I can well imagine I have met, in line at the BMV, on a crowded bus, or at an extended family reunion.  Flawed, but decent folk, too much like the rest of us for me not to be invested in their well-being.  King’s newest novel, proves to be no exception to this.  The novel’s main character, Jamie Morton, opens the novel with a nostalgic look-back into his childhood, to a time when the catalyst to alluded horrors, his “fifth business” first entered his life.  The Reverend Charles Jacob and his charming family arrive in the small Maine town of Harlow in 1962, where they become fatefully intertwined with the Morton family, until a horrific tragedy drives them apart.  Jamie and Charles meet again, several times over the ensuing decades, with lasting effects on Jamie, both good and ill. In his fifties, Jamie, at last apprehending that the long-sought realization of Charlie’s obsession (the source and application of De Vermis, a “secret” electricity) may be more terrifying than miraculous.  The last 200 pages of this novel virtually read themselves.  A cross between a Mary Shelley gothic novel and a Bill Bryson memoir, Revival, is sure to go down as yet another King classic.

Mr. Mercedes

Stephen King’s latest novel, “Mr. Mercedes”, invites readers to join protagonist, Retired Detective Kermit Hodges, on a hunt for damaged mass murderer, dubbed by the press as Mr. Mercedes.  The novel opens outside of a large auditorium, set the next morning to host a job fair. The promise of a thousand jobs attracts large numbers of the impoverished city’s unemployed.  Desperate, they begin lining up long before midnight.  After weathering cold temperatures and damp fog, potential applicants are heartened by the slow creep of dawn, until a silver Mercedes emerges from the mist.  It is only at the last moment that members of the queue realize the driver’s intent: to run them down. Having murdered several and injured more, the killer disappears into the fog from which he emerged. Enter detective Kermit Hodges, who began his retirement sometime after the case had gone cold.  Bored and depressed, Hodges spends his time watching cheap television and developing a suicidal fondness for his dead father’s gun.  This spell is broken when Hodges receives a bizarre letter from the killer, the self-titled “perk” of the Mercedes massacre.  Told from the perspective of both detective and “perk,” the novel also provides the reader with an all-access pass into mind of Brady Hartsfield, murderer and secret keeper.  Intelligent, twisted, and at times sympathetic, Brady is baffled and enraged when his plans for Hodges begin to go awry.  A departure from King’s tried-and-true supernatural vein, “Mr. Mercedes” is both fast-paced and engrossing.  This novel should prove to be a favorite amongst old fans and new readers alike.