Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers – by Stephen King

After reading just about everything Stephen King ever wrote, I took a break from him around 2016. The reason being is that, although many of his books are great, many were downright awful. In November 2018, I picked back up where I left off, and since King writes frequently, I found myself about 5 or 6 novels “in the hole”.  Finders Keepers is part 2 of the “Bill Hodges Trilogy”. I enjoyed this one much better than the first one, Mr. Mercedes, despite the fact that the plot for this caper seemed a tad implausible.

The plot of this book could only be dreamed up by an author who has written a bazillion books over the course of half a century. The story starts off about 40 years prior to present day. A young 20-something man breaks into an elderly, retired author’s home to steal manuscripts of the author’s never released books. This kid really must love to read.  Apparently this author had a ‘series’ of books focusing on one particular character, and when the author stopped writing and ‘retired’, the diehard fans were rather distraught.  This is something that does happen from time to time, but breaking into a man’s house and robbing him at gunpoint?  Well, let’s just say things go very wrong during and after the robbery, and the thief ends up rotting away in prison before he gets a chance to enjoy his ill-gotten booty. Fortunately, he does have the manuscripts (in the form of notebooks) hidden, so when (if) he ever gets released, he’ll make a b-line for his buried treasure and bask in the glory of his loot!

Well, when we fast-forward to present day, it seems as though there’s another kid, who’s another avid reader who accidentally stumbles across the treasure.  Just like the thief 40 years prior, this kid is in awe of the finding as well as he’s a lover of serious literature.  You would think he discovered the Ark of the Covenant or something. Again, only a serious writer of books like Stephen King could fathom such devotion.  When the thief finally gets out of prison, he wants his property back, and has no problem doing whatever it takes to reclaim what he stole.

We’re well into about one-third of the story before Bill Hodges (a retired detective) and his cronies Jerome and Holly appear on the scene. Sadly, the interaction between these three is the most annoying aspect of the whole story. Their dialogue with each other seems forced and silly as is many of their personality traits.  We’re told umpteen times that Bill is on a strict diet since he had a heart attack several years ago, and we’re constantly reading about him avoiding temptations like McDonalds as he’s forced to eat gross stuff like salads.  And on and on and on.

So the Bill Hodges characters really aren’t necessary to the story, but overall, I still found this book a good read. Sure, as I mentioned, the plot is a bit silly, but when the story and action moves at the right pace, one can easily overlook such things.   I should also point out that, unlike many of King’s books, this is a straight-forward mystery that has no connections to horror, the supernatural, nor the bizarre. That’s not really a good thing, nor a bad thing, it’s just that it’s a bit unfair when King always seems to be stereotyped as a ‘horror’ writer. He’s capable of so much more.

Not one of his best, but far from his worst.  This one falls into the “overall, pretty good” category.