Holly Gibney is back, a mere two years after her eponymous book. Some constant readers may prefer other tales, themes and protagonists but King’s own devotion to the former side character from Mr Mercedes cannot be denied.
It starts in the King-iest of settings; a meeting for anonymous addicts. We meet a man called Trig. Is he a good person? King initially leaves us in the dark on that but forecasts ’horrible’ things that he will do.
A letter is soon after sent to the police promising the murder of innocent people as a strange form of atonement forced on ”the guilty”. The guilty being, they quickly surmise, a man who framed an innocent colleague who was later killed in prison. Being friends with a detective investigating the threat, Holly gets involved and quickly realises that it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Following Trig once more, it seems like something else is going on. But what? He does not consider himself a sadist or psychopath, he is doing something he feels he must. And on his first kill he ”doesn’t flinch”. But perhaps this mission of his is assuming the shape of an addiction. ‘So what’, he tells himself. What’s wrong with that?
But King has other important characters to introduce, such as a controversial feminist writer and her assistant on a speaking tour – which starts dramatically with an assault. The dynamic between these two is interesting and complex, the sort of situation King excels at. Is there a link between these threads other than the theme of ’crusaders’, people never backing down once they have decided? People who never flinch. I won’t say.
As in the first book featuring Holly, a big concert is in the making alongside an upcoming fireman-police baseball match. Performance is a big theme, in fact. We also get to follow the continuing careers of the Robinson ’kids’, with Barbara getting some unexpected praise for her poetry, leading to an unexpected gig taking her far outside of her comfort zone. Being a Holly book, it also deals with both investigative minutiae, psychology and darkness. We also meet a dual identity in the form of Chris/Chrissie, a character(s) just as dedicated as Trig and Kate. Running through the book is the theme of a country just as divided. Here, everyone is devoted to their cause. They are the righteous ones, the other is the villain. They have their stories, their motives. And they can do good deeds in passing. A scene with Trig picking up a hitchhiker comes to mind.
It’s a book about plenty of things but if pressed I’d say it’s about zealots and addiction. And when the paths of the two main antagonists happen to cross, King’s setup looks like it is about to pay off. To be frank, though, I feel he could have done more with this part.
That aside, it is a typical, tense Mercedes-like finale with the final 100 pages or so begging to be read in one sitting. King even manages to connect the seemingly irrelevant baseball game to the main story.