Book Review: Finders Keepers
I've read more Stephen King in the last couple of years then any other author. What you might find interesting is that Mr Mercedes the first in the Bill Hodges trilogy was one of my least favorite books that King has written. It wasn't bad but it just came across disingenuous. He's such a prolific author and to do what felt like a standard summer thriller felt out of character. So I went into Finders Keepers not expecting much. That feeling expanded exponentially when I got through the first chapter and found out what the main crux of this book was all about.
In a nut shell there's a famous author who wrote three very popular books. A man who wasn't happy with the third book came to rob the authors home to find the next books in the series and ends up killing the author and hiding the authors books. Fast forward 30 years and a kid finds the books with the burglars stolen money and the two are set on a collision course. Bill Hodges the detective from the first book plays a very minor role both in the entirety of the book and the conclusion of this story. In fact much of Finders Keepers feels like a stop gap between this and the final book in the trilogy.
And yet with all of that said what seemed like a book I wouldn't enjoy was one of the most entertaining reads I've had in a while. I'm not saying that this isn't a very straight forward mystery thriller, because it is. But its also crazy entertaining. This book has a far better pace. A story that's easy to follow and figure out who you're rooting for. It also suspends the disbelief that these books, characters, and timelines all would match up as perfectly as they do. I plowed right through Finders Keepers in a week and enjoyed every second of it. It's not a book that will stick with me for a long time but I enjoyed the read while it lasted. It also made me far more interested then I thought I would be in the finale of this trilogy.
“A good novelist does not lead his characters, he follows them. A good novelist does not create events, he watches them happen and then writes down what he sees.”
