Finders Keepers by Stephen King

As I mentioned in my review of Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes, that was the first of a trilogy. Finders Keepers is the second part of the series but the recurring characters don't appear immediately, and it doesn't feel entirely organic when they do.

The story starts off in 1978 in the home of acclaimed author John Rothstein. He is known for a trilogy of books (hey that sounds familiar) about a man named Jimmy Gold. Morris Bellamy, who mostly loved the Gold novels, is quite upset with the way the third book ended, and ends up killing Rothstein. With a few accomplices, Bellamy gets away with money-filled envelopes and several Moleskine journals from Rothstein's safe. He later kills the two accomplices and realizes the journals are filled with unpublished writing that includes two more Jimmy Gold novels, which is more valuable to Bellamy than the cash. He ends up hiding both the journals and money in a trunk buried near his house, and goes to jail for a crime he doesn't even remember committing, rather than the robbery and homicides.


That may seem like an exhaustive plot but we're just getting started. About thirty years later, a boy name Pete Saubers lives in Bellamy's former home and finds the buried trunk. Since his family is having financial trouble, he decided to anonymously send the cash to his own address, a couple hundred dollars at a time. Meanwhile, Morris Bellamy has been in jail but happens to be up for parole. Once Bellamy realizes the journals are not where he left them he's on the warpath. When Pete's cash runs out, he tries to find a way to make money off the Rothstein writings but it's not as easy as he hoped, and his sister gets in touch with Ret. Det. Bill Hodges because Hodges helped a friend of hers.


So Hodges and his acquaintances Holly Gibney and Jerome Robinson from Mr. Mercedes finally get involved in the story at this point, and it just isn't handled as smoothly as in the first book, in which they were way more personally invested in the crime. I feel like King had the story of the murderous literary fan in mind and he shoehorned in the established characters. Morris Bellamy will remind readers of Annie Wilkes from King's Misery since she was quite upset with the author of her favorite books, except Annie wasn't as blatantly bloodthirsty as Bellamy. He's also not as interesting of an antagonist as the mother-obsessed Brady Hartsfield from Mr. Mercedes. In this volume Hartsfield is hinted to have gained telekinesis, a seemingly common King trope, but that does keep me interested to see where things will go in the finale of this trilogy. Finders Keepers was compelling enough while I was reading it, but by the end it didn't leave a lasting impression and was ultimately filler.