Bingo: Red
Stephen King’s Finders Keepers is the second book of the Bill Hodges trilogy. The first book was Mr. Mercedes, which I enjoyed. This second book was a bit sluggish, although
the pacing was fine. The story itself didn’t have a lot of pep.
The book centers on Peter, a teenage boy who comes across a stash of money and dozens of Moleskine notebooks full of writings. The stash was put there by a criminal named Morrie, who robbed and killed his favorite author initially for his money. He is a fanatic about the author’s series and is incensed about the way the last book ended. When he sees the stash of writing he has to have it as much as has to have the money. He hides everything away after killing his two accomplices, but is caught for another crime and sent to prison for years. He is freed just around the time Peter finds and removes his stash. The rest of the book is Morrie looking for Peter. Bill Hodges, the retired detective from the first novel, gets involved with his sidekicks Holly and Jerome.
The villain Morrie is not that compelling. He’s a murderous creep, but doesn’t have nearly the crazy menace the first book’s killer had. Though make no mistake, he is crazy. He’s fixated on the dead author’s work to an almost ridiculous degree.
The book is not a horror novel, more just a detective story. There is a hint of the supernatural at the very end, which is obviously a set up for the final book on the Bill Hodges trilogy.
This isn’t a bad book, except in several places where King is ultra cringey about a few Black characters (quelle surprise, I had a full on rant about his Black characters in my review of one of the Gunslinger books). But that aside, it was mostly just mediocre.