I’m still going back and forth on whether this should be a 4 or 3 star. Maybe I’ll get to the bottom of that conundrum by the time I finish this review. I warn you, there will be spoilerish content here as I work through my feelings on this book, so if you are sensitive to such things read no further.
It wasn’t until I preordered this book that I discovered this is the second in a planned trilogy of sorts, which began with last years Mr. Mercedes. I liked that book well enough, plenty of interesting and fleshed-out characters and a good mystery featuring a sufficiently diabolical villain. No supernatural hoo haw anywhere. See this is where I am running into trouble on this book. Bear with me.
The story begins with Morris Bellamy and some unfortunate cohorts holding the famously reclusive writer John Rothstein at gunpoint in his remote farmhouse. They are there for the thousands of dollars in cash that is supposedly stashed there, but what Bellamy really wants are the notebooks that Rothstein has supposedly been keeping. When Rothstein dropped out of sight after the success of his Jimmy Gold trilogy, it had long been rumored that he continued to work on his writing, possibly even writing more of the Jimmy Gold saga. This is what Morris needs, because he was not happy with the the third book and how Rothstein left Jimmy. I mean really not happy. Like bat-shit crazy not happy. While I found Morris tiresome in the extreme, there were some interesting thoughts on literary fandom to be explored. Morris gets away with the notebooks and the money, buries them then gets sent to jail for life on an unrelated charge.
This brings us to Pete Saubers, the teenaged son of one of the survivors of the tragedy detailed in Mr. Mercedes. He discovers the books and the money decades later. What he does with it still keeps us firmly in standard mystery novel mode. Things naturally get out of control at some point (no, Pete, no!!!!!) then the heroes of Mr. Mercedes come on the scene, tying it all together at last. There’s blood, there’s more bat-shit crazy, there’s a heart-pounding denouement. Cool. But near the end, then at the very end : clack! The supernatural is back. Knowing this is part of a trilogy makes me think Uncle Stevie had this mind all along and that is sort of okay with me. Sort of. If I didn’t have that information, I would have been been all WHAT THE FRAK?? I still am, a bit. But you know, it’s not a bad thing to be challenged by a much-loved writer, to look at him and his works and characters in a different way. Because, Christ, I certainly don’t want to end up like Morris Bellamy.
