Although Stephen King’s Finders Keepers is the second part in what has to become the Bill Hodges trilogy, it takes its sweet time to pick up the threads Mr. Mercedes left dangling. The story starts some thirty years before those events, with three guys robbing a reclusive writer of the contents of his safe (and his life). Flash forward to the present, where the titular Finder happens onto the stash of that robbery. Those strands alternate, until we end up firmly in the here and now, and Ret. Det. Hodges joins the fray.
As with Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers is a highly enjoyable romp, but certainly not among King’s best work. The characters are, as usually, likable and fully formed, and story is crafted and paced just right, but sometimes it felt a little too convenient. Our hero and his antagonist growing up in the same house, some thirty years apart; their fascination with a certain reclusive writer: it’s almost as if their inevitable face-off was, well, inevitable. Not that it matters much: it’s fun, and that’s what counts.
The trilogy will be concluded with End of Watch. Whenever that one’s done.
- Book read
- Stephen King – Finders Keepers
- First line
Wake up, genius.