Vintage King.
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It was a character novel. Billy is a hired hit man who only kills ?bad men? and he signs on to his last kill before retiring. Things don?t quite work out that way for him. It is interesting to follow his story that he puts into words by writing a book. Kirkus: The ever prolific King moves from his trademark horror into the realm of the hard-boiled noir thriller.?He?s not a normal person. He?s a hired assassin, and if he doesn?t think like who and what he is, he?ll never get clear.? So writes King of his title character, whom the Las Vegas mob has brought in to rub out another hired gun who?s been caught and is likely to talk. Billy, who goes by several names, is a complex man, a Marine veteran of the Iraq War who?s seen friends blown to pieces; he?s perhaps numbed by PTSD, but he?s goal-oriented. He?s also a readerĄZola?s novel Th?rĂ‚ÂŹse Raquin figures as a MacGuffinĂ‚ÂĄwhich sets his employer?s wheels spinning: If a reader, then why not have him pretend he?s a writer while he?s waiting for the perfect moment to make his hit? It wouldn?t be the first writer, real or imagined, King has pressed into service, and if Billy is no Jack Torrance, there?s a lovely, subtle hint of the Overlook Hotel and its spectral occupants at the end of the yarn. It?s no spoiler to say that whereas Billy carries out the hit with grim precision, things go squirrelly, complicated by his rescue of a young womanĂ‚ÂĄAliceĂ‚ÂĄafter she?s been roofied and raped. Billy?s revenge on her behalf is less than sweet. As a memoir grows in his laptop, Billy becomes more confident as a writer: ?He doesn?t know what anyone else might think, but Billy thinks it?s good,? King writes of one day?s output. ?And good that it?s awful, because awful is sometimes the truth. He guesses he really is a writer now, because that?s a writer?s thought.? Billy?s art becomes life as Alice begins to take an increasingly important part in it, crisscrossing the country with him to carry out a final hit on an errant bad guy: ?He flopped back on the sofa, kicked once, and fell on the floor. His days of raping children and murdering sons and God knew what else were over.? That story within a story has a nice twist, and Billy?s battered copy of Zola?s book plays a part, too.Murder most foul and mayhem most entertaining. Another worthy page-turner from a protean master.

Another well done Stephen King. The structure was similar to another King book I happened to just have finished, Holly. It had sections from the past. I read the book as it was written, not skipping around to read it in chronological order as I did with Holly. The book introduced characters Alice Maxwell and Roger Klerke in rather jarring fashion. I thought Ken Hoff could have filled the role Roger Klerke had. Billy Summers put on a "dumb" act to keep people who hired him off guard. It may have been a good twist if Ken Hoff was doing the same thing to Billy!
2,308 members; 3.97 average rating; 12/15/2023 ( )

This was a good read but I struggled getting into it at first. May have been due to the narrator of the audiobook. But once I got in I really enjoyed the story. ( )

Billy Summers is quite possibly the most likable hired-gun I've ever read. We learn about him as he works his "last job" and writes his memoir. As is expected in any "last job" trope, it goes sideways and while he completed the job, he has to set out to collect the payment he was stiffed on. There were a few things I didn't care for in this book - the descriptive sexual assault as revenge for sexual assault being a major one, but I did enjoy the little reference to The Shining while they were staying in Colorado.

All in all this was definitely the best of King’s work I’ve read in a while. ( )