Thad Beaumont is a university professor and novelist with two books to his name, one of which was nominated for a National Book Award. However, his greatest success is as the man behind the pseudonymous George Stark, whose four ultra-violent novels have all been bestsellers. At the beginning of The Dark Half, Beaumont has decided to retire the Stark persona after a nosy fan figured out who was behind it. To get ahead of the game, Beaumont participates in a People magazine story publicly coming […]

There sure are a lot of stories about “the best assassin in the world.” One wonders if there might be more stories than there are assassins, but since audiences seems to love paying for them and male action stars love the ego-boost of playing them, I doubt it will stop anytime soon. Since I personally find these stories irritating and a little distasteful I was a little disappointed to hear that Stephen King had dipped his toe in this well. Still, as a Constant Reader, […]

A very tightly-focused Stephen King novel that I think will end up being among his best, mostly because he’s able to avoid one of his biggest problems, shunting in supernatural elements into a mostly character-driven narrative. Billy Summers is a for-hire killer, a former Army sniper, who because of a childhood trauma, has a penchant for killing, but only if they’re “bad people”. It’s a year before the pandemic and his new job has him setting up shop for weeks before the job as a […]