Hey gang! I’m returning to doing a few things I’ve gotten away from here. One of those are my thoughts on what I’m reading. I won’t be giving you huge book reports or reviews, but rather a quick glimpse into my thoughts about whatever I read.

I will herald this feature’s return by digging into Stephen King’s Holly.

First, when I read the Bill Hodges trilogy, Holly Gibney wasn’t my favorite character. I felt she was kind of boring and didn’t add to what Bill’s story was leading toward. However, by the end of the final book, End of Watch, Holly started to grow on me. I didn’t feel like she grew into her own as a character until her experiences in The Outsider.

Once Holly is on her own, she becomes more alive as a character. The idea of her being a private detective and on the spectrum makes for an interesting reading. King does do a superb job of building her character through four novels and a novella, but Holly’s fifth adventure is surprising.

I admit, I wasn’t looking forward to another Holly Gibney story in such a short period. She has been a constant focus in King’s work over the past few years. Was I happy for a new King novel? Yes. Was I happy for more Holly? No.

But I digress; I was wrong.

I don’t want to get too much into the book, but it was a refreshing change of pace from King’s recent offerings. Holly is hired to find a missing girl and uncovers a connection to a string of disappearances in town. What do the disappearances have to do with an elderly couple who are also professors at the local university? What secrets do the couple harbor in their basement?

Reading this chapter in Holly’s adventures with her Finders Keepers agency was quicker than I anticipated. Ultimately, I thought the pacing was tight, the story engaging, and the evil of an elderly couple to be one of King’s recent best. If there is any drawback, King gets highly political in the book, making it easy to date when he wrote it. Still, the constant harping on politics doesn’t take you from the ins and outs of the book enough to be a serious issue, but one that will make people scratch their heads when they read it in the future.

I give Holly 4/5 Tombstones and highly recommend it for your TBR pile.

Now, we’ll have to wait till next year to see what King has in store for his sequel to Cujo.

Catch you all next time!

Brent