Review of Billy Summers by Stephen King
By: Mischa Cheverie
If you're looking to be swept away in an end of summer read full of adventure and plot twists throughout, then Stephen King's newest book Billy Summers is the book for you. This can't put down page turner will have you up all hours of the night until it's done.
Meet Billy Summers, a decorated Iraqi war vet turned hired assassin. He's not like others though, Billy will only take a job if the target is a bad guy, which helps with his fake persona as someone who is not all that bright except for his sniper skills and disappearing like Houdini after the job is done. It's best to be underestimated in this line of business.
Thinking of retiring, he gets offered a too good to be true job, worth enough for him to finally get out of the business and retire more than comfortably. The target is another hitman, and some very powerful people want him gone because he knows too much. The only problem with the job is that he's going to have to blend into a suburb and pretend that he's an up-and-coming writer until the time that his target is extradited to the little town he's holed up in, however long that takes.
Billy not only blends in with his new neighborhood, but he also becomes completely enmeshed with his entire street, having barbecues, weekly monopoly tournaments with the neighborhood kids, and living a life he's never known. He's also seriously giving writing a book about his life a shot. This is where we get a book inside a book which is done brilliantly. Being able to read Billy's book as he writes it gives us a deeper look into his life and all the events that brought him to this little town.
After months of waiting, it's finally time to do the job he was hired to do, and Billy has his escape plan all set up, complete with another identity with a tiny basement apartment on the other side of town. This third identity was set into play when Billy got a feeling that he was going to be double crossed by the man that hired him. Turns out he was right.
The job is done, and Billy has managed to elude not only the police, but also the men that were hired to take care of him after he was done his job and is hiding out in the tiny basement apartment with only one window waiting for the heat to die down so he can get out of there and hunt down the man that hired him and screwed him over by putting a price on his head. Billy wanted the money he had earned.
This is where the book takes a completely different turn and we are introduced to Alice, a young woman that was discarded across the street from Billy's hideout by the three men that sexually assaulted her, leaving her for dead. Fear of the police showing up and starting to ask questions, Billy rescues her and brings her into his tiny apartment, were they begin to form a bond like no other. Alice stays and heals from her assault, not wanting anyone to see her so badly bruised and battered, and Billy continues to write his book, and allowing Alice to read it, bringing them even closer.
Once the coast is as clear as it's going to get, it's time to leave the safety of the tiny apartment and set out to on a cross country trip to get Billy's money and start a new life under the new identities that Billy got for both him and Alice, if she chooses to join him afterwards. But first, he needs to visit the men that hurt Alice and make them pay for what they did to her. This journey becomes one of not only vengeance, but also one of healing for the both of them.
Together they cross the country, staying at little out of the way motels along the way and making plans on how to settle the score Billy has with the man that hired him, who happens to be a very powerful man that has a taste for very young women…
Stephen King once again takes us, his Constant Readers on the trip of a lifetime, and he definitely delivers an action packed, fast paced novel that leaves you wanting more after turning the last page, with just the right number of current events added, from mentions of Covid-19 and lockdowns, touches on the sex slave business as well as some well placed political comments about Former President Trump. There is also mention of The Overlook Hotel, which will excite true Stephen King fans and gives an inkling of hope that there just might be another book in the works.
Billy Summers has definitely made it onto this Constant Readers top ten list of favorites Stephen King novels and I'm sure it will make it onto yours as well.
Cheers and Happy Reading
