gilda_elise

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

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 in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.

I didn’t mind the politics. It’s life, after all. And King is certainly not the first author to give his characters his beliefs; he’s certainly done the reverse. I hadn’t even known there was a problem until I started reading some of the other reviews (I wonder what they would have made of Star Trek!). I figure, if I don’t like a book that much, I quit reading it.

My major complaint is with Holly, who I’ve loved in all the books in which she’s appeared. I’m not sure what happened, but her spark seems to be gone. And considering that the character has to pretty much carry the book, that’s going to be a major problem. I felt as if she really wasn’t there. That she was a disinterested bystander. Not until near the end of the book, when things are hitting her in the face, does she come alive.

This isn’t a terrible book; far from it. The case is interesting and the villains are truly villainous. But it’s not one of King’s best. I know people can be truly evil, so maybe I just miss the supernatural slant. Is the book horror? Yes, just not in my favorite flavor.