Book Review: Finders Keepers by Stephen King

Even though it's essentially a self-contained story, Finders Keepers suffers from the mid-trilogy blues. It's still a cracking read and finely crafted, as King weaves together several stories with nice parallels just on the right side of coincidence and characters that seem just a touch more human than other writers' characters. The motivations in this case are literary, as a reclusive writer's Moleskin notebooks play the MacGuffin. But Mr. Mercedes was better: more happened, with more twists, the evil was scarier, and the setup more unusual (just read the blurbs and tell me which story you're more interested in reading). A few foreshadowings of the third book, End of Watch, interested me more than the present story did. When all three are out, the shortcomings of Finders Keepers will probably fade and the trilogy should be considered as one big book. For now, it feels a bit too much like running in place, but I have a feeling King will make it pay off in the end.

Note: The audiobook reader is really excellent, changing tones to indicate different characters artfully, and throwing himself into King's over-the-top dialogue with gusto. I recommend listening to this rather than reading it.