Finders Keepers: A Novel (2) (The Bill Hodges Trilogy) / King, Stephen

An Amazon Best Book of June 2015: For those of you who spent part of last summer being thrilled by Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes, this worthy sequel arrives just in time for summer 2015. Of course you can read Finders Keepers on its own if you’re so-inclined—King takes time to introduce new characters and new crimes in the first half of the book before carting out some familiar faces from the past. The story begins with a murder (of an author) and a robbery (of the author’s notebooks, including at least one unpublished manuscript). The crimes will linger in your mind, but what might linger most is when King explores his obsessions with, well, obsessions: obsession with reading, obsession with writers, even the need to get revenge. The book is well-plotted, but there remains an organic feel to this series, like the characters are writing themselves to some extent. As a character in Finders Keepers puts it, “a good novelist does not create events, he watches them happen then writes down what he sees. A good novelist realizes he is a secretary, not God.” Amen. That's why we love you, Stephen King.--Chris Schluep