Holly by Stephen King
‘Holly’ by Stephen King is the latest instalment in his late career move into the crime/mystery genre. The monsters here are very much of the human variety and we are reacquainted with Holly Gibney, the private detective who this time takes centre stage as the main character. Can she hold her own, and does this book work as a thriller?
Plot
So this is the fun part where I talk about the plot in a mystery/thriller without giving the game away. I will say that it’s not a whodunit, because the main suspects are identified from the beginning of the book. So Penny Dahl has contacted the finders keepers detective agency because her daughter Bonnie has disappeared and she believes it to be completely out of character.
Holly isn’t sure if she wants to take the case on, as she’s dealing with the recent death of her mother. Her partner Pete is out of action because he is a victim of the covid epidemic sweeping the country, and her occasional associates Barbara and Jerome are busy with their own projects.
But there’s something about Bonnie’s disappearance that is niggling at Holly and we know how tenacious she can be when that happens. Naturally she gets involved and she begins to realise the case may be much bigger than she thought.
Meanwhile retired Professors Emily and Rodney Harris live in tree lined streets close to the university. But is everything as it seems with these respectable octogenarians?
Holly Gibney
I was just a few pages into ‘Holly’ when mention was made of ‘Chet Ondowsky’ and a previous case and I realised I’d missed a book along the way. So I put ‘Holly’ down for a bit and went to read ‘If it bleeds’ from the collection of the same name, a short novel starring the finders keepers detective. Of course after I’d read that instalment, I had to keep reading the other three novellas before returning to ‘Holly’. Uncle Stevie can be pretty addictive.
So far there has been mention of Holly in ‘Mr Mercedes’, ‘Finders keepers’ and ‘End of watch’, before she gets more of a starting role in ‘The outsider’ and then the previously mentioned short story. By now we have a flavour of Holly, but it’s only in this book that we start to really delve deeper into her past, including her family background.
I have to admit that Holly has grown on me. She’s an interesting character in the way she relates to people, and seems to have OCD and be on the spectrum. Once I began to learn a bit more of her family history and how she was treated by her mother, I began to empathise with her. It’s also obvious that Stephen King likes the character and it wouldn’t surprise me to see her starring in another book.
Covid
This was the first book I’ve read that references covid, and King leaves you in no doubt as to where he stands on the subject. Holly’s own mother is a denier, even as she lies dying of the disease. Personally it doesn’t bother me - maybe it dates the novel, but King obviously wanted to make his point.
Has enough time passed for you to read a book with references to covid? Only you will know the answer to that. I can only say it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the book - it was a period of history that happened, none of us enjoyed it, but forgetting about it isn’t going to make any difference.
You can also take it that he’s not a Trumper, which wasn’t a big surprise. He’s received a fair amount of flack for being obvious in his dislike for the man, but I couldn’t care less. We live in polarised times and if helps to shed light on a character and their beliefs, good.
Holly Summary
I did enjoy ‘Holly’, but it really took a while to get going. The subplot with Barbara and her poetry bore fruit eventually, as I knew it would, but it did seem to meander for long periods. I found it easy to read, and it was difficult to put the book down as the story ramped up to a conclusion. As usual King creates some despicable baddies, this time a pair of octogenarians. There are squeamish moments and grisly goings on with some gore so content warning but hey, you’re reading Uncle Stevie what are you expecting to find?
In terms of mystery, we know the perpetrators from early, so you’ll be disappointed if you like surprises. As a reader, you are watching a game of cat and mouse, and this should be familiar to you if you’ve read Kings previous books in the genre. Personally I don’t think many do crime/mystery better than Michael Connelly, so that might suit you better for straight up books in that genre.. So this is a different type of crime mystery book and part of the fun here is watching how the case comes together - how Holly and her associates make connections with the clues they find.
Honestly, I don’t think any King books will ever capture the pleasure I got from the early classics - Salems lot, The shining, The stand, Carrie, It, Skeleton crew etc. I think that was a particular time and a place for me, when I was discovering the joys of reading. Personally I don’t the recent output hits those heights, and maybe my expectations are too high. He’s written some of the greatest thrillers of all time.
But I do like these ‘Holly’ books - there’s a great pace to the books, with plenty of thrills and surprises, likeable and thoroughly unlikeable characters, and lots of humour as well. King seems to have a lot of fun writing these books using the mystery/crime tropes and personally I hope there’s a few more to come. For me it’s probably a mid range King, but as long as he’s writing, I’m happy to keep reading.
449 pages, Hardcover
Hodder and Stoughton - September 5, 2023