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Synopsis:

Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town.

“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.” — BILL HODGES

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.

Review:

In the latest Stephen King novel, Holly, King returns to Holly Gibney and her Finders Keepers detective agency. She is called about a missing girl, Bonnie Dahl, and what she uncovers is an elderly couple, the Harrises, retired professors from the university and serial killers.

The story is good. I have been reading far more thrillers and mysteries than I used to so I can start to distinguish what I like versus what I do not like. I like the structure like Holly, where we know the Harrises from the very beginning, and we know that they are up to something sinister. King has been writing novels long enough to plot well, pace well, and leave his readers on the edge of their seats. With his starting the book with the killers, we have the information that Holly does not have and will have to figure out. While she gets closer and closer to learning what we know, the tension ramps up higher and higher until a conclusion that is satisfying. The plot is interesting and entertaining and I enjoyed reading a majority of the second half of this book. 

The first half is excruciating. We know that King has political opinions and he shares a great deal of this on Twitter. He has also spent his career writing politics into his stories. Since this novel is set in 2021, with Holly’s mother just dying of Covid, the topic of Covid, vaccinations, masks, and elbow-bumping instead of handshakes are prominent. Holly has been written as a germaphobe anyway, so it is no surprise that she takes precautions seriously. This becomes more and more intolerable as the books move along. It turns from being a cautious character into a statements that are no longer part of the plot. Moments throughout feel like King is just an old man taking the opportunity to yell at the clouds.

I know firsthand that Covid was ugly and brutal. I watched many many patients die in the hospital, but there is also a part of me that feels like the entire pandemic was much more nuanced than King portrays it to be. King’s preoccupation with precautions and vaccination status eventually turn into a good vs evil in this book. The good guys are vaccinated. The bad guys are anti-vaxxers. The good guys tell each other which vaccines they received before taking their masks off (which also does not make much sense because having the vaccine does not stop you from getting or spreading Covid). The bad guys refuse to do elbow bumps with Holly. These things become a focal point in who is good and who is evil really stereotypes all of the characters in the novel and the inclusion of this black and white, right and wrong narrative distracts so much from the story. 

Holly is not one of his best, but it is pretty decent. I like that unlike The Outsider and “If It Bleeds”, this story does not have a single supernatural element, just evil people doing evil things. Holly Gibney, despite all of her flaws, is someone that you are rooting for, and I feel like we are definitely going to see more Holly in the future.