Horror Book of the Week: Holly by Stephen King

 

This week's Horror Book Recommendation is Stephen King's newest thriller HOLLY.

HOLLY is about the character Stephen King created in Mr Mercedes, a novel published in 2014.

Holly Gibney is a detective who runs the Finders Keepers agency after her partner Bill Hodges passes away. Her current partner, Pete, is down with COVID and at home. And so it is all up to Holly to solve a rather bizarre case all on her own.

Stephen King has famously stated that he intended Holly to only have a walk-in part in Mr Mercedes but she managed to steal his heart to the point that he wrote a whole novel with her as a protagonist.

HOLLY released on September 5th, 2023. Coming as no surprise, the novel sits at the number one spot on the best seller's list in the horror section.

Reviewers have found this book to be thoroughly enjoyable and praised King for his ability to go in-depth with his character and write an engrossing thriller about serial killers with an unusual appetite.

Customers who bought this book initially found the book to be overly political. Considering the background theme is the pandemic, there was bound to be mentions of the methods used to end the pandemic.

Readers did find the book to be well-written and hard to put down. Many readers were able to finish the book within a few days.

Fans of his earlier work missed the supernatural element in this novel but found that the mystery component compensated for that.

Quick Book Review of HOLLY Based on Sample

In 2012, Jorge Castro sees Professor Emily Harris and her wheelchair-bound husband struggling to climb a ramp. Jorge help them only to be drugged and held captive by the couple who make odd threats to him.

It's now July 22nd, 2021 and we meet Holly who has just lost her mother-figure to the pandemic. To top it all, her partner Pete is down with Covid leaving her to deal with a woman called Penny Dahl who is looking for her daughter Bonnie.

We switch to year September 10th  2015. Cary Dressler helps an old couple in an empty parking lot. This time there's a woman in the wheelchair who needs assistance. Cary is high and so barely feels the needle in his neck.

The back and forth in timelines could have been annoying or even break the pace of the story, but the switches are masterfully handled. Each section contains a part that will keep your interest piqued.

The problem with HOLLY is that you will find yourself wondering if this is indeed Stephen King's work. His voice and writing style appear to have changed.

The narrative reads like a personal rant rather than a character's innermost thoughts. Stephen King used to be able to get into his character's heads, even for the minor characters.

In HOLLY, at least for the first few chapters, you will only be able to catch a glimpse of the prolific author. Other times, the writing appears too technical. It checks all the boxes, it follows all grammatical rules, but the soul is missing.

The one thing that remains unchanged is Stephen King's ability to make his readers keep turning pages and read one chapter after another.

 The Plot of HOLLY

“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.” —BILL HODGES

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.

“I could never let Holly Gibney go. She was supposed to be a walk-on character in Mr. Mercedes and she just kind of stole the book and stole my heart. Holly is all her.” —STEPHEN KING

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