Author: Stephen King
Year: 2015
Finders Keepers is Book #2 in the Bill Hodges trilogy, bringing us back to Bill’s vigilantism/private investigation, after we met him in Mr. Mercedes. This time, his crew is official, he’s more legitimate, but we still get a law enforcement story without the long arm of the law, which is fun, and a slightly twisted murder tale, which is what we want from a King book. This one is better than Part 1 by a good bit, adding in much more to enjoy beside Bill’s team, and much more to chew on.
After putting away the Mercedes killer, Bill is now an independent man-for-hire, cracking down on crime one job at a time. But his new case is more personal and more pro bono, as kids connected to his friend Jerome ask for his help and swiftly get it. A young man has found a lot of money, but more than that he found unpublished manuscripts, stolen from a murdered author many years before, and stashed away by the killer himself. Now that criminal is out of jail looking for his haul, and anyone who gets in his way, including children, is dead meat.
This story was better than the first because it added in new elements and didn’t solely focus on Bill. We met the kid, the killer, got their stories, added Hodges into the mix, and then all the ingredients equaled up to an interesting climax. This was more King and less crime pulp, but still not supernatural, so again a mix of other genres than we’re used to. King can still sling though, even when he’s away from the horror or the fantasy, and Finders Keepers proves that. There’s one more book to go, I imagine Bill will die in a blaze of glory, but we’re just have to see, won’t we.
My rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆