Mr King giveth, and Mr King taketh away. For someone so prolific, I guess it should come as no surprise that some of the approx. 157 books he releases every year will be duds, but it’s still disappointing when you know all the good he’s capable of when he puts his mind to it.
My biggest problem with this recent effort was with my suspension of disbelief. And since this is Stephen King we’re dealing with, let me be clear what I’m talking about. I have absolutely no problem with a psychic kid and his alcoholic father being snowed in for the winter in a haunted hotel. Guy goes back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK? I’m there (and also bought a copy for my dad). I’m fine with clowns living in sewers, telekenetic prom massacres, and whatever the hell the Tommyknockers was. It turns out, however, that I draw the line at a rule-following retired cop withholding evidence from an active investigation.
I’ve known a lot of cops. They come in the same kinds of shapes that people do. Some are plods, some are razor-sharp. Some have no imagination, some insert themselves for lengthy stretches into undercover roles without once raising a suspicious eyebrow. Some are cowboys who get off on abusing their powers, and some have worked every day of their professional lives trying to make the world a better place. But if, like the protagonist of this novel, you’re a cop who has spent literally 40 years patiently logging every piece of evidence and respecting the chain of command, you do not, in a million years, suddenly become a guy who turns rogue and tries to bring down a killer accompanied only by your teenage neighbour without telling your former partner, WHO IS STILL IN CHARGE OF THE INVESTIGATION, what you’re up to or what all the new evidence you’ve uncovered is. Since that’s the entire premise of this novel, this proved to be a problem.
Also, let’s talk about the teenage neighbour. This character involved some bizarre racist decisions on King’s part that made me very uncomfortable. Here’s a good rule of thumb: just because the character enacting old-timey racist stereotypes as a joke is black, doesn’t make it ok for you, a white guy, to have written it. It makes it weird. If it doesn’t add anything to the character, ask yourself: is there any good reason I’m including this? The answer is likely to be “no”.
The main redeeming feature of this novel is that, since it IS by Stephen King, you can trust him not to hold back on the mortality rate when it comes to major characters. With some thrillers, you just know that the hero’s going to swoop in at the very last minute and rescue [no character spoilers] before the [no death mechanism spoilers] happens. King will happily use them as human plot element shields. So that’s something, I guess. Seriously though, go read 11.22.63 instead.