Finders Keepers is the second of The Bill Hodges Trilogy, and while he doesn't actually appear for almost 200 pages, the novel doesn't suffer at all with his absence. Firstly,the novel the begins with a bang, literally, and although Stephen King has portrayed so many fascinating villains throughout the years , Morris Bellamy is one of his most fascinating yet. I was transfixed by him from page one. Pete Saubers also makes his appearance before Bill Hodges and I couldn't help but taking a liking to him right away. There are few authors out there who are able to make children and teenagers such important and vital characters like King does. Most novels don't even include kids, never mind making them the hero. But Peter in the story we have yet another "can't put it down" novel by Mr. King ! ( )

This is a 3 1/2 Star book. Much better than the horrible book he delivered last fall, Revival.
It is ironic that Stephen King points out rule #13 omit needless words in Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style on page 323 of his latest book Finders Keepers, because this is the first time I can remember a Stephen King book being a good story while at the same time being needlessly wordy and detailed. Finders Keepers is easily too long by 100 pages.
This being a Stephen King book the story was still better than a lot of books out there, but the amount of needless detail for me, got tiring quickly. Also I am not sure we needed to be exposed to a number of characters left over from last summers book Mr Mercedes, especially Jerome and Holly who weren't needed in this book.
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This book was weird because there was like a hundred pages before Bill Hodges made an appearance, and I was like what is he even gonna do in this plot? But he ended up doing good once he arrived, and the story leading up to it (ehh, the actual plot of the book I guess) was interesting enough on its own.

Gotta talk about the ending though. I can't believe this crime series is turning into supernatural territory???? I honestly thought King was trying to do something else, but apparently I was wrong. I am, however, neither mad nor disappointed, I'm very interested in reading the next book and see where it all leads. It's just not what I expected.

Oh well ... is the third book already out in Swedish? Gotta look into that. ( )

The Bill Hodges Trilogy, book 2

I hate to say it, but this book was a miss for me.

The premise was fascinating, it had all the elements to be an un-put-down-able thriller but it fell flat with the many chapters of explaining aspects of the characters that just didn't matter to the story.

Part One introduces us to the major players, and over all the majority of it can be skimmed through. It's a lot of nothing, filled with more nothing that could have been clipped to skip ahead to the actual story.

If you are following the events from book 1 this installment does give two small teasers about the culprit from book one but you can read the last chapter if that's all you're here for.

The middle gives us a tad bit more action, and build up but again fills every scene with pointless character thoughts and long drawn out walking bits that really just make it hard to slug through.

Once the end comes around, it's worth it, as all the climax is surprising but expected based on the traits we've had beaten over our heads for the last however many chapters.

I love the growth Holly displays in this book, and glad the gang is back together for another case. Stephen King does a marvelous job at showing us we're all connected in weird ways. This is another 'funny how we're all 5 degrees of separation' from each other.

You'll love this story if you love slow burn thrillers, and the characters from the first Bill Hodges book. ( )