Stephen King will always primarily be known as a horror novelist, said Neil McRobert in The Guardian. Yet his best recent books have been those in which “the ghosts are packed away and the monsters are all too human”. And the 73-year-old’s latest novel – a noirish tale, without a hint of the supernatural, about an assassin doing “one last job” – is his “best book in years”.
Billy, an ex-army sniper turned killer-for-hire, moves to a city in an unspecified southern US state, after being contracted to kill a small-time crook. While waiting for his shot, he passes himself off as a writer – a role he embraces so enthusiastically that he even “fills his time with writing his life story” (excerpts of which are reproduced).
The result is a somewhat meandering tale that “pays only the scantest regard to the rules of narrative structure”. Yet King is “so good at character and making us care” that it grips all the way to its “biblical climax”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Although Billy Summers starts out seeming “easy to pigeonhole”, it turns into a “dazzlingly shape-shifting novel”, said John Dugdale in The Sunday Times. Halfway through, Billy encounters a rape victim – whereupon he transforms into a Jack Reacher-like figure, “righting wrongs via extrajudicial violence”. The shift is handled with “unshowy aplomb”.
This is a book with “designs on readers’ heartstrings as well as their adrenal glands”, said Jake Kerridge in The Daily Telegraph. Ultimately, its true subject is Billy’s quest to “redeem himself by trying to become a decent man”. There’s something implausible (not to mention sentimental) about the idea of a hitman going “full White Knight” – but it is made credible by King’s “storytelling genius”.
Hodder 432pp £20; The Week Bookshop £15.99
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
-
Dinosaurs were thriving before asteroid, study findsSpeed Read The dinosaurs would not have gone extinct if not for the asteroid
-
Trump pardons crypto titan who enriched familySpeed Read Binance founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering while CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange
-
FBI nabs dozens in alleged NBA gambling ringSpeed Read Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier are among 34 people indicted in connection with federal gambling investigations
-
6 well-crafted log homesFeature Featuring a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace in Montana and a Tulikivi stove in New York
-
Film reviews: A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
-
Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
-
Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into ArtFeature Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Dec. 7
-
Music reviews: Olivia Dean, Madi Diaz, and Hannah FrancesFeature “The Art of Loving,” “Fatal Optimist,” and “Nested in Tangles”
-
Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
-
Ready for the apocalypseFeature As anxiety rises about the state of the world, the ranks of preppers are growing—and changing.
-
A little-visited Indian Ocean archipelagoThe Week Recommends The paradise of the Union of the Comoros features beautiful beaches, colourful coral reefs and lush forests
