Finders Keepers

by Stephen King
434 pgs  (Bill Hodges trilogy #2)

In 1978 three masked men invaded the home of John Rothstein, a reclusive novelist; killing him and stealing thousands of dollars in cash and over one hundred notebooks containing the author's unpublished writings. Years earlier Rothstein wrote a critically acclaimed trilogy of books that became required reading for most teenagers before he dropped off the map and refused to publish again.

Two of the men who broke into his house and killed him were in it for the money rumored to be stashed away in his house. But the third, an obsessed fan named Morris Bellamy, was there for the notebooks. He was certain that Rothstein had written more books in the series, and he was willing to do anything to find out what happened next. Bellamy buried the cash and the notebooks with plans to retrieve them once the dust settled, but soon after doing so he was sent to prison for life for an unrelated crime.

Thirty-five years later, Morris is finally released from prison and goes to retrieve the money and notebooks, only to find that they're gone. As he hunts down the person who took them, King reintroduces Bill Hodges, Jerome Robinson, and Holly Gibney from Mr. Mercedes into the story as they try to protect the person who has them.

Finders Keepers is a fantastic follow-up to Mr. Mercedes. It shows how versatile an author King is. It's not horror or supernatural like most of his other books are, but there are small parts that flirt with the supernatural and hint at the direction things will turn in the next and final book in the trilogy--and I for one can't wait.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆