Finders Keepers by Stephen King

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BOOK REVIEW

Rating: ✪✪✪✪½ out of 5 Stars

Release Date: June 2015

Publisher’s Website: Hachette Australia My review of #1 in the Bill Hodges' Trilogy Mr Mercedes: CLICK HERE

My thoughts

Stephen King doesn’t often write a series. Yes, I know he’s written The Tower Series, which I did try and read recently, but it’s not my cup of tea. However, he's better known for his stand-alone novels and they're the ones I love most. In the past few years, his storytelling has moved into a whole other realm of brilliance. Finders Keepers is again one of his best.

This story follows on from 2014 Mr Mercedes. King opens with a new set of characters: well-rounded, intense, and with fascinating backstories. King loves to plumb the eccentricities of authors and their fanatic fans, having ventured into this territory previously many times, most famously with Misery and he's at it again.

It’s 1978 and petty thief Morris Bellamy murders beloved author John Rothstein in a botched robbery. After Rothstein ends his famous Runner trilogy unsatisfactorily in Bellamy’s opinion, he is after any unpublished work still in Rothstein’s house. What he finds is plenty of cash and a treasure trove of moleskin notebooks containing further Runner novels and notes. Worried about police pursuit, he buries his booty in a trunk near the river behind his childhood home.

In present day, Peter Staubers, whose father was badly injured in the events that opened Mr. Mercedes, where a car was driven into a crowd of job seekers by a lunatic, now lives in Bellamy’s old home. Peter finds the mysterious trunk and becomes obsessed with the notebooks, too. He secretly sends instalments of the money to his struggling family.

The story flashes back and forward between the two eras and characters and we discover why Bellamy abandoned his treasure. It isn’t until a fair way into the story that private detective Bill Hodges (the lead character from Mr. Mercedes) enters the story. Hodges is brought in to investigate who is the Stabbers family's mysterious benefactor. Eventually all characters come together in a satisfying and thrilling ending.

King seamlessly interweaves the characters and storylines from Mr Mercedes, including Mr Mercedes himself. Both Mr Mercedes andFinders Keepers are brilliant, enjoyable reads. King is still the master of the thriller, stand alone, series or trilogy.

P.S. I just love the FINDERS KEEPERS and MR MERCEDES covers. In paperback they have a real dimension.

I received a copy of this book from Hachette Australia for an honest review. Thank you to the wonderful book-loving people there.

More about this book at: Finders Keepers

My review of Mr Mercedes: Mr Mercedes

Video of Stephen King talking about his inspiration for Mr Mercedes: CLICK HERE

BOOK BLURB

'Wake up, genius.' So begins King's instantly riveting story about a vengeful reader. The genius is John Rothstein, a Salinger-like icon who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn't published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel.

Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Sauberg finds the treasure, and now it is Pete and his family that Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson must rescue from the ever-more deranged and vengeful Morris when he's released from prison after thirty-five years.

About the author:

Stephen King is the bestselling author of more than fifty books. His novels include Carrie, The Shining and Revival. His novel Under the Dome is now a major TV series. His novel 11.22.63 won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller as well as the Best Hardcover Book Award from the International Thriller Writers Association.

Many of his books have been turned into celebrated films including Misery, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Over the years, King has had various cameo roles in film adaptations of his books as well as playing rhythm guitar in the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock and roll band made up of some of America's bestselling and best-loved writers. He was the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives with his wife, novelist Tabitha King, in Maine, USA.