End of Watch: Stephen King wraps up his latest series

I'll confess that I'm not one of those readers who gobbles up everything Stephen King writes. In fact, the first novel of his I read was Misery, back during the Iran Contra hearings on television while I was home with a new baby. I liked his writing, but there were so many books on my list, I didn't get hooked.

Then I read his excellent book on writing. It was one of those most borrowed (or stolen) from my classroom book shelf. After November 22, 1963, I had to admit that King was as varied as he was prolific.

Then I started Mr. Mercedes. I don't know what led me to choose this one--in audio at the library, but I immediately loved Hodges, the retired detective at the center of the story and Jerome and Holly, the unlikely sidekicks he picks up along the way to solving the horrific City Center event when a driver plowed into a huge crowd of people camping out at an employment fair. When Finders, Keepers, the sequel came out, I was on the waiting list again. I loved the technologically challenged, aging detective, his partner, the socially inept but computer savvy Holly and Jerome, originally the teenager who does Hodges' yard work, but eventually tackles his computer issues.

With the publication of the final book in the trilogy, King made an appearance in Nashville. The event tickets were snapped up in four minutes. I didn't get any. But I happened into the library when the book was on the "Lucky Day" shelf--new releases available for 14 days only.

In this book, the Mr. Mercedes killer is still in the brain damage ward of the local hospital, but Hodges' partners have stages in intervention, convincing him to quit visiting Brady Hartsfield, whom he suspects is faking to avoid prosecution. When one of the seriously injured City Center victims and her mother are found dead of apparent suicide, Hodges' former partner, about to retire himself, calls him in for his opinion.

The novel that results balances 95% realism with that 5% creepy supernatural King does so well. Using retro handheld game devices, someone (Hodges suspects Hartsfield) is setting off a rash of successful and attempted suicides.

I was glad I kept reading through the epilogue and acknowledgments, where King points out to readers that while the story is fiction, suicide is real and serious. He provides the suicide hotline number and encouragement for anyone considering suicide to give things time to get better because, as he points out, they eventually do.

While I felt the ticking of the clock as I power read the book, trying to finish it in time to return it to the library for the next lucky reader, I lost myself in a well-told story. I'm missing Hodges and his friends already.

End of Watch: Stephen King wraps up his latest series

Stephen King's Finders Keepers: Surprising Myself

While many readers are suspicious of writers considered too prolific, Stephen King manages to church out books faster than almost any successful writer around without sacrificing style.  I've been an occasional reader of King's novels, even though I don't consider myself a fan of the horror novel. I remember reading Misery while at home with my third newborn.  (For the record, it's not exactly relaxing reading, but at the time the Iran-Contra Hearings were on television, so my options for mental stimulation were slim.)

I loved King's book on writing, and was drawn easily into November 22, 1963.  (I loved that one, but I felt he rushed the end a little, using as narrative device the summary of what had happened by the old man who set the story in motion.)

Recently, I happened onto Mr. Mercedes, the story of a retired detective whose life is saved when he is challenged to solve a crime.  The characters were quirky and clever, and no one's villains can match King's.

In the recent novel Finders Keepers, the detective Bill Hodges is back--but not until halfway through the book. King returns to the same town, with protagonist Pete Saubers, whose father was injured int he crime solved in Mr. Mercedes. The villain in this novel Morris Bellamy has much in common with  Pete, particularly a shared obsession with author John Rothstein, a Salinger-type writer who hasn't published since the sixties--but has keep writing, filling moleskin notebooks.

King builds a suspenseful story by moving back and forth between Morris and Pete, but when Hodges and his unlikely helpers, Jerome and Holly, from the earlier novel, I couldn't help feeling as if I were having a visit from old friends.

What sets King's works apart from some other prolific writers of suspense novels is the intellectual intrigue. He manages to weave in literary allusions deeper than a simple Wikipedia entry.  In doing so, he does more than simple name-dropping. Obviously, with all the time he spends writing, he is also reading voraciously--or he has excellent recall of everything he ever read or studied.

With the final pages of the novel, King accomplish one more achievement: He makes me wonder when he'll be releasing his next novel with Hodges as a character.

Stephen King's Finders Keepers: Surprising Myself