Audiobook Length: 15 hours and 24 minutes

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Genre:  Fiction, Horror, Thriller, Supernatural

Read Start Date: December 30, 2023

Read Finish Date: January 6, 2024

Goodreads’ Synopsis: 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.

My Review: The plot revolves around the disappearance of Bonnie Dahl, a teenage girl. Holly, despite being on leave and grappling with personal grief, agrees to take the case. As Holly investigates, she uncovers a series of unsettling disappearances in the seemingly peaceful town. The narrative switches between the past and present and between the POVs of Holly and the Harris’s. On Goodreads, this book is marked as the third book in the “Holly Gibney” series. I read and reviewed the first book, The Outsider, in 2019, and you can find the review here. I read the second book If it Bleeds, in 2020 and was on a reviewing hiatus then, so I did not review it. I have not read the Bill Hodges series yet.

This book is more or less a standalone book, although there were several references to the previous books, which I did not fully understand. Having read the other books 3-4 years ago respectively, I did not fully remember them. That being said, it wasn’t important to the main plot, so reading this book without first reading the others would not matter all that much.

I wouldn’t call this a mystery because you already know the “who-done-it” as the reader. The “why” of it all comes near the end of the book and was something that I wasn’t expecting. I thought the book was well-paced and had enough horror and suspense to keep me interested. Essentially, the book delivers a satisfying mystery with gradual reveals, unexpected twists, and a chilling atmosphere.

Holly is a complex and nuanced character. Despite being a germaphobe during a pandemic, having lost her mother (due to COVID-19), and having her business partner in the hospital (also with COVID-19), Holly is courageous and determined to stop these serial killers at all costs. I also enjoyed reading about the secondary characters and the subplots were interesting and carefully and masterfully interwoven into the main narrative.

The one criticism I have about the book is that I was not thrilled with the level that COVID-19 played in the story.

In 2020, I was living in Austria, so my experience with the pandemic was much different than that of Americans. In the book, every time people met, there was some discussion of COVID-19. Some characters shook hands, others bumped elbows. There was always some commentary about it, and it was obvious where each character stood on the issue. After the first few times, it honestly felt redundant and tedious. Was it really like that in America? Was everyone obsessed with COVID-19? Was it the first topic of conversation with every human interaction? Even in 2021, when the present-day portion of the book took place? While the inclusion of COVID-19 might have been true to the times, I do not feel it added anything to the story and could have been left out entirely. I get that sometimes art is true to life, but can we not just forget about COVID-19 for once?

Nevertheless, my feelings about this book are mainly positive and I would recommend this book to other fans of Stephen King, especially those who enjoy strong female protagonists and suspenseful mysteries.