Number 61- Holly- Stephen King

 

The fifth book to feature Holly Gibney, who first appeared on the sidelines in Mr Mercedes. this one pissed off a lot of people when it came out. For some reason, they didn't think a book with a hypochondriac main character, set in the middle of the pandemic should mention COVID. Idiots.

Regular readers of this blog will know I'm a big fan of Mr King and this was a novel I was highly anticipating. 

In the middle of the Covid years, Holly, trying to get over the recent death (by Covid) of her mother, takes on a case looking for a missing girl. While looking for the girl, she finds out about a number of other disappearances in the area over the past few years. She's unwittingly stumbled into the middle of a serial killer case.

The killers are an elderly pair of professors from the local university who rank amongst the vilest characters (in a good way) that King has so far created. I won't say why they're taking people off the streets, that's something you need to discover for yourself.

As usual with King, this starts fairly slowly but builds tension brilliantly. I had to read the last 150 pages in one sitting.  I was NOT going to put that book down.

This is also notable for King using a selection of Shreddies to great effect. He doesn't often do that.

I had a great time with this. I suspect King knew how much it would annoy certain tracts of people and had fun with that too. Highly recommended. If you disagree with his politics, you'll hate it though.