I honestly didn’t know what to do with this one. I was wavering between 2 and 3 stars, but ended up giving this 3 stars. Parts of the story were good, but I think overall this was just a mess. I don’t know what is going on with King and Holly Gibney, but I really wish that he would get back to something else with this series. This one really just had too much. Too many villains, too much Mary Sue-ness with regards to Barbara, too much stupidity by everyone, and then a totally flat ending. I will always read Stephen King, but this and I think “Fairy Tale” have me going what is going on with him in some of his standalone novels. For those that thought the last book was a bit too gory, this one really isn’t, you read about being getting shot, but it’s not lingered on by King.
“Never Flinch” is the 4th book starring Holly Gibney. For Constant Readers we got introduced to Holly in the Bill Hodges trilogy (I miss Bill) and now we are following Holly as she runs their private investigation business pretty much solo these days. The book follows the events of the last book, with Holly getting closer to Detective Izzy Jaynes. They end up eating food together and talking somewhat about the work they are doing. Izzy pulls Holly into a case that the police are investigating. A man who was found guilty and sent to jail was later exonerated by someone claiming they set him up because they got the promotion the other man wanted. The man was murdered in jail. And now someone is out there killing in his name and leaving notes of the names of those who they are standing in for. If that wasn’t enough, Holly is also asked to be the bodyguard of a woman who has grown in popularity due to her writing and speeches about a woman’s right to choose.
As I said earlier, that’s too much happening in this book. I think the serial killer running amok was enough for one book. I think that King had so many ideas in this, it just didn’t really work. I was glad to read his afterword talking about those who have been murdered by the forced birth movement, but I think if that’s the book he wanted, he should have stuck with that too as just one story-line. I just didn’t find it believable after a while and the coincidences we get and how everything converged in the end. I do want to add, my complaints about this book is about it being stuffed, it’s not about King sharing his politics in this book. His match mine. I always get annoyed at readers that go the writers should write apolitical books. If you don’t want to read about politics in this one which focuses about a woman’s right to choose, I would suggest skipping.
Also, at this point, is there anything that Barbara can’t do? Write award winning poetry, check. Apparently sing so great that a long-time singer demands she sings as part of her back-up singers, check. I mean I just got over it a bit in the last book with King shoe-horning her in, but this one took the cake.
I still love Jerome, but he’s another one that apparently he can sit down and write a book, but then hits a writer’s block and helps Holly some on the serial killer case and doing research for her on the bodyguard one.
Holly….I wish we had just stuck with her throughout the book and then shifted over to the bad guy’s points of view if needed. I just didn’t think we get enough of her in this one. The book was split by too many characters. I did like the addition of Izzy, but that was honestly about it.
The flow was not good. It’s just a lot of and this happened, but then they had no idea that later on there would be a time they would be close to death. I mean I don’t know. That type of sentence kept making me laugh and then sigh. I just felt like foreshadowing is supposed to be somewhat subtle.
The setting of the book just jumps around. Holly is traveling throughout most of the book, but most of the action is primarily in Ohio though. Yeah, I know, Ohio, not Maine. Hey, at least he’s broadening his book settings.
There are of course some Easter eggs for Constant Readers. We get references to “The Outsider” and a character named Red (The Green Mile), but mostly this book seems stuck in the here and now.
The ending as I said just happens, there’s no big decision like there was in “Holly” with Holly herself wondering if she wants to continue to be an investigator after the crimes the Harris’s did.