Library's review
The storyline also moves back and forth in time, from the late 1970s when a two-bit punk pulls off a robberty-cum-murder of a reclusive novelist clearly meant to evoke J.D. Salinger, to the present day, when a very likable teenager finds the loot from that long-ago caper. When the punk is released from prison he comes after his ill-gotten spoils and thus our young protagonist is in mortal danger.
I liked this book really well, right up until some supernatural elements started creeping in. They were barely mentioned here but will clearly form the foundation of the final book and I'm not excited about that. The older I get, the more I appreciate King when he writes "straight".
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"A masterful, intensely suspenseful novel about a reader whose obsession with a reclusive writer goes far too far--a book about the power of storytelling, starring the same trio of unlikely and winning heroes King introduced in Mr. Mercedes" -- ""Wake up, genius." So begins King's instantly riveting story about a vengeful reader. The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn't published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel. Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Saubers finds the treasure, and now it is Pete and his family that Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson must rescue from the ever-more deranged and vengeful Morris when he's released from prison after thirty-five years" --… (more)