Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
Praise for Billy Summers Named a Best Book of 2021 by BookBub,
Booklist, Esquire, Goodreads Choice Awards, Kirkus, Parade, Scribd,
Apple Books, Tampa Bay Times, and The Wall Street Journal! "Billy
Summers is an ambitious, controlled and compelling shapeshifter of
a book: combat novel, platonic romance, noir caper, portrait of an
artist coming of belated age. Its pleasures are numerous, and it
touches the mind, heart and nervous system in equal measure."
--The Wall Street Journal "Billy Summers is the perfect summertime
treat - solidly crafted, deliciously suspenseful and surprisingly
heartfelt. King plays to all his strengths: deep characterization,
clever plotting and this time an ending that seems both logical and
well earned... Billy Summers might be King's most bookish thriller
to date, an incisive character study wrapped inside a road novel,
coupled with a very unconventional love story."
--Portland Press-Herald "Not to put too fine a point on it, but
BILLY SUMMERS is the best Stephen King novel in a while... [it] has
the irresistible forward motion that's characteristic of just about
every story Stephen King ever wrote... [what] sets this book apart
[is] its stylistic brilliance... I was blown away by this book... a
variety of voices, sharply tuned to the personae of one character,
are measured, developed and explored across a truly gripping
adventure story... one of Stephen King's masterpieces."
--Dana Wilde, Central Maine "A tense, absorbing story about a
brainy hitman struggling to go straight -- and the author's best
novel in many years... an engrossing read, deftly plotted, suitably
hard-boiled, and at times almost magically imagined."
--The Los Angeles Review of Books "King's latest stars a
killer-for-hire whose final assignment involves moving to a small
Southern town and taking cover as a writer, a job that turns out to
be as rewarding as killing bad guys. As for the hit, it doesn't go
so well, but that's part of the allure of this twisty, multilayered
thriller."
--The Washington Post "A noirish, unputdownable thriller that's
also King's best book about his own craft since On Writing."
--People Magazine "Multifaceted... hard-to-put-down... It's two
stories for the price of one, and King gives readers their money's
worth."
--Amanda St. Amand, The St Louis Post-Dispatch "King writes
beautifully about both the seemingly humdrum details of small town
living, the seedier backwaters of America and of the idiosyncrasies
of Summers, as compelling a main character as he's ever written...a
refreshingly straightforward, often wildly entertaining and
intricately plotted tale of revenge and redemption."
--Emily Burnham, Bangor Daily News "A testament to its author's
undimmed energy and confidence. His eye for detail, especially at
the dreckier end of roadside culture, is sharp...lively and
vivid."
--The New York Times Book Review "Among the many remarkable things
about Stephen King is that he has yet to run out of ideas. Or put
another way: He's very good at finding new ways to explore themes
that have interested him his entire career... The passages where
Billy writes his life story are some of the best in the book...
It's when [Billy] finds an audience for his story that the book
really starts to find its groove."
--Rob Merrill, The Associated Press "A first act of stunning formal
control... a delicious engine of tension... a delightfully tense
crime thriller... somehow both hard-boiled and human, and on par
with much of King's best work... King can still build tidal waves
of tension from the smallest deviation from plan, sending Constant
Readers plunging deep into the flop-sweat insecurities of his
heroes as they watch a situation potentially spiral out of control.
In situating Billy's atonement in communication and creation, not
violence, King manages to find a space for redemption... Billy
Summers is winningly optimistic about the life of the creative
mind. More than almost any other King book in recent memory, it's a
product of its time, but not a victim of it."
--William Hughes, The AV Club "Stephen King is an artist, and
readers and critics who underestimate him do so at their own
peril...Billy Summers is a very good story, told economically with
an ear for rhythm. It's about what it's like to be a human being,
and how that doesn't really change much, no matter what situation
you find yourself in...while there are plenty of action sequences,
the heart of this novel lies in its quietest moments."
--Philip Martin, The Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette "A love
letter to the transformative effects of putting words on
paper...the impassioned argument Mr. King makes for the role of
writing in healing traumas is heartfelt and affecting... fast-paced
and cleverly constructed... written with Mr. King's legendary eye
for detail, and his ability to immerse readers in the mindsets of
fictional characters serves the story well... witnessing this
deeply-scarred man discover a new way of seeing himself and his
place in the world is beautifully resonant. Mr. King's sheer
pleasure in the alchemy of turning mere words into entire universes
is on full display here, and it is contagious -- not just for
Billy, but perhaps for Constant Readers as well."
--Wendeline Wright, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Stephen King hits
the mark with assassination thriller Billy Summers...It's downright
unfair, really: Not only is Stephen King an undisputed master of
horror, he's a virtuosic crime novelist as well... King actually is
as good at the hard-boiled prose--in this case, the tale of an
extremely effective assassin trying to get out after one last
job--as he is the scary stuff... King's known for his literary
villains, yet in creating his killer title protagonist, he
exquisitely gets into the mind of a hitman and roots around in
there to figure out what kind of person would do wetwork, the
loneliness involved for those who choose that as a career path and
the effect it would have on friends and loved ones... The biggest
crime here, however, would be missing out on Billy Summers and
King's new reign as a pulp genius."
--Brian Truitt, USA Today "King's latest endeavor begins with a
familiar premise: decorated veteran Billy Summers, a principled hit
man on the eve of retirement, agrees to do one last job. Things go
south in spectacularly bad fashion, making for a characteristically
King thriller about luck, fate, and redemption. To see the
undisputed master of horror shift into the realm of noir thrillers
is proof that King can still surprise and astound us, all these
decades later."
--Esquire "King has multiple novels in play here--thriller, at
least two coming-of-age stories, and a knockout road novel--and he
knits them together beautifully, never missing a stitch ... King
has never been better than he is here at wrapping readers into a
propulsive, many-tentacled narrative--complete with a perfectly
orchestrated, moving ending."
--Booklist, starred "[A] tripwire-taut thriller... King
meticulously lays out the details of Billy's trade, his
Houdini-style escapes, and his act to look simpler than he is, but
the novel's main strength is a story within a story... This is
another outstanding outing from a writer who consistently delivers
more than his readers expect."
--Publisher's Weekly, starred "The ever prolific King moves from
his trademark horror into the realm of the hard-boiled noir
thriller ... Murder most foul and mayhem most entertaining. Another
worthy page-turner from a protean master."
--Kirkus, starred
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