Finders Keepers (Bill Hodges Trilogy #2) by Stephen King

[gilda_elise]

Wake up, genius.

The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author 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 Saubers 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.

Enjoyable, but not so much as the first book. Maybe because I kept waiting for Hodges and company to show up, and they don’t until well into the book. And it wasn’t until they did they I was able to completely get into the Saubers/Morris story. I do wonder if the book would have worked better with completely all new characters, thus avoiding preconceived expectations.

I suppose something that the book didn’t have going for it is that it’s very much a crime/mystery sort of book, and I’m not normally drawn to them. That I enjoyed it as much as I did says a lot about King’s writing. Some may not enjoy his dense world building, or his cavalcade of characters, but those two things are what probably draw me to his writing more than anything else. Well, and the horror, too. This book gives you one, if not a great deal of the other. I can deal with that.

There are hints that lead to the third book in the trilogy, and I’m glad to read that it’s very much a Hodges book. Looking forward to reading it.






Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.


1. ReDeus: Divine Tales
2. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
3. The Exodus Quest
4. Troy: Shield Of Thunder
5. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
6. Hyperion
7. Thin Air
8. Gods and Generals
9. White Seed
10. The Killer Angels
11. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
12. Troy: Fall of Kings
13. The Last Full Measure
14. Gwendy's Button Box
15. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
16. Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition
17. The Mists of Avalon
18. In The Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Barack Obama
19. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
20. The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #2)
21. The Lost Labyrinth
22. Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West
23. A Brief History of Phoenix
24. Point of Contact
25. Gone for Soldiers: A Novel of the Mexican War
26. The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story
27. God: The Human Quest to Make Sense of the Divine
28. The Dog Master: A Novel of the First Dog
29. Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
30. Fire In the Sea
31. The Song of Troy
32. From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava
33. Helen of Troy
34. The Selkie
35. Conquest: The English Kingdom of France in the Hundred Years War
36. Grief Cottage
37. Beyond the Gates
38. Knock Knock
39. Mr. Mercedes
40. Finders Keepers

Comments

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

I suppose something that the book didn’t have going for it is that it’s very much a crime/mystery sort of book, and I’m not normally drawn to them. That I enjoyed it as much as I did says a lot about King’s writing

Even though the horror genre doesn't usually attract me, this book *does* sound like a really good read so thank you for the rec!

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

The first two books aren't horror, but I think the third one is, so you might want to stop after the first two. Or not. :-)