BOOK REVIEW: FINDERS KEEPERS – by Stephen King

Shane | 8 July 2015 | Reply

BOOK REVIEW: FINDERS KEEPERS – by Stephen King
Hachette Australia
June 2015
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
9 ½ /10

It should come as no surprise that this latest offering from the master of suspense and horror writing is near-enough un-put-downable: King’s reputation is assured after his decades of success.

King expertly entwines three timelines in Finders Keepers: in 1979 there’s sociopath criminal Morris Bellamy, obsessed with reclusive author John Rothstein and his Jimmy Gold character, with his “shit don’t mean shit” catchphrase. Bellamy is prepared to kill to get his hands on rumoured unpublished Gold novels.

In 2009 young teen Pete Saubers finds a chest full of stolen manuscripts and money, which he secretly uses to alleviate the domestic problems of his struggling family. When the money runs out Saubers makes “the worst decision of his life” and tries to sell some of the manuscripts to keep his family afloat.

King makes his creations completely believable in this tale of an out of control obsession colliding with a struggling family, and when Bellamy goes on a rampage in 2014 after 35 years in jail for an unrelated crime, and retired detective Bill Hodges starts to investigate the case, the true mettle of all these characters come to the fore.

There’s a lot of other things going on here: Finders Keepers might actually be the best thriller of the year, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spoil it for anyone – if you want to know more, pick it up and you’ll be hooked in no time.