Author: Stephen King
Series: Bill Hodges Trilogy #2
Book description (from the book cover): The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn’t published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel.
Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Saubers finds the treasure, and now it is Pete and his family that Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson must rescue from the ever-more deranged and vengeful Morris when he’s released from prison after thirty-five years.
Trigger warnings: Mentions of rape several times, abusive parents ( different types one is emotional or psychological mostly due to abandonment or lack of interest in the child's wellbeing).
Thoughts:
It starts by introducing a dual timeline; one follows Morris Bellamy a petty criminal teenager really. He is obsessed with a writer and just like Annie from Misery, he thinks his favorite character was ruined by a money-obsessed man. Morris convinces two other young men to go hit the house of his favorite author.
He is after, not the money, the man has accumulated in his isolated house but for the books, the stories the man has not published after his early retirement. It ends in tragedy.
The villain is flushed out as a character, making this a very convincing character. As usual, in the story, we have a very bad situation - a disturbed and abusive mother. He seeks solace in books, as a coping mechanism he believes himself to be too smart to be appreciated by the community and his family. His self-appointed niche- literature.
The man is a coward, self-righteous and delusional, he never takes responsibility for his own actions and spends his time blaming his misfortunes on others.
He has lived most of his life in prison, what has he learned from that?
Nothing, he blames his imprisonment on his mother and mainly on the woman he attacked.
The other timeline follows mainly Pete Saunders, who also has a tough childhood. His father was among the people hurt by the man in the Benz. The family is struggling financially and Saunder's marriage is straining under the pressure. So when the teen finds a treasure chest, he barely hesitates and starts using that to help out his family.
He has a very lonely life, no friends to speak of, no girlfriend, a passable relationship with his family. The parents are too busy with their own misery and stress that they do not have time to pay attention to their children or their needs.
The detective and the magical trio don't appear until halfway through the story or a bit more. I am surprisingly not a big fan of any of them Holly still comes across like a meh character here, Jerome is not that interesting anymore and well Bill does not really shine as a detective in my opinion.
It does drag a bit at some points, but still overall it was a very enjoyable ride. My main focus was on the two new characters that showed up in this one.
I ended up enjoying this more than expected.
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