#Review #4stars #KeepersofKing Billy Summers, Stephen King

MY REVIEW 4 stars:

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, not quite as much as I’d have liked to, but quite a bit nonetheless! I felt like it was missing something… like that big outrageously impractical bang that makes King such a literary King. I also felt like it was too long. I actually wrote that very same note in the very last review I completed – about how much longer that book was than it needed to be. I totally know how much I’m repeating myself, but seriously, it’s been a loooooooong bookish week lol. That said, lets talk about all the things I enjoyed about this book, shall we? Although overall it was so long and had a lot more content than it needed, the pace as a whole was nice. I felt like a lot of the time it had sort of a contemporary feel. Lot’s of build up and back story. Lots of minute detail that built up to thorough imagery and fantastic world building. The characters are relatable, realistic and from cover to cover I felt connected. Billy Summers is a hit man who has loads of aliases’. He’s been hired to take out a criminal, yet his window to kill is short and risky. What’s great about Billy is that he comes prepared and gives himself plenty of time to make sure the job is done right. He’s in disguise for most of the book, and not just one disguise with one place of residence either. About the first quarter or more of the book is a build up to this job, giving the details of each alias and his big plan of escape. What’s great though is that one of the individuals he pretends to be is a writer, with a secured job to look the part. He actually writes along the way and the book he’s writing is his own back story. I’m a huge fan of books within books!! Billy’s childhood was heart wrenching. His mom was a careless druggie who allowed terrible men into their home. One of these men did an unspeakable thing (I don’t want to give it away.) but he wound up being Billy’s first kill, out of self defense. From there, he eventually wound up in a foster home and then joining the military. It was over seas that he became a snipper and ultimately built himself up as a lonely killer with a secured fate of paid murder. It isn’t until nearly halfway through the book while Billy is holed up waiting for his pay to come through -which for some reason isn’t being delivered – that Alice comes along. Billy witnesses a girl being left for dead after having been attacked, rapped and severely beaten. His conscience gets the better of him, and we winds up taking her in and nursing her back to health. I really like Alice. She’s a strong willed young woman who doesn’t judge Billy for everything he is, but rather accepts his tie ins with the mob and the life of killing men of crime that he’s spiraled into. The two become comraderies and as his payday is clearly not coming as promised, Billy and Alice take to the road. The journey that they embark on is full of twists and fated turns. Again, I don’t want to give anything away. I will say that the ending was satisfying, gory, tragic and all the ends where tied up nice and tidy… and yet, I still wish it would have packed a bigger punch. 4 stars for me!

DESCRIPTION:

The #1 New York Times Bestseller
An Esquire Best Book of the Year
A Wall Street Journal Favorite Book of the Year
A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist

From legendary storyteller Stephen King, whose “restless imagination is a power that cannot be contained” (The New York Times Book Review), comes a thrilling new novel about a good guy in a bad job.

Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?

How about everything.

This spectacular can’t-put-it-down novel is part war story, part love letter to small town America and the people who live there, and it features one of the most compelling and surprising duos in King fiction, who set out to avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man. It’s about love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one last shot at redemption.

You won’t put this story down, and you won’t forget Billy.