I never
have read a truly bad Stephen King novel, but his novels tend to be good or mid
teir. This one falls into the mid tear category. “Never Flinch” is the newest
Stephen King novel about his private eye Holly Gibney, who we all met back in
2014, as a supporting character in his novel “Mr. Mercedes”. Holly has obviously
become Stephen King’s favorite character, as she has appeared in six of his
novels. Holly seems to face off against both supernatural and regular forces., She
face a supernatural threat in the 2018 novel “The Outsider” , but in most of
these novels she appears in, Holly faces off against evil that is more down to
earth, like serial killers and kidnappers.
In this
novel, Holly is facing down two cases. On one end, she is helping her police officer
friend, Izzy, face off against a serial killer who has connected his killings
to a trial case gone wrong, killing people and leaving the jurors name on top
of their dead bodies. On the other end, she is hired to become a bodyguard for
a feminist who is making a name for herself on the lecture circuit. These
aren’t bad plots. I’ve read other mystery and thriller novelists who love to
have two cases take up a novel. I would assume it makes it easier to fill up a novel
if there are two mysteries to be solved.
Holly is
still a good character, yet her becoming a bodyguard doesn’t make a ton of
sense. Kate McKay wants a woman to be her bodyguard, instead of a man. Being an
activist for women’s rights, she doesn’t want to be seen as needing a man’s
protection. She is being stalked by a mysterious man who hates her pro-choice
activism, and at one point, even pepper sprays her personal assistant.
The problem
is Holly is often described as a small woman, and though she might be a great
private eye, I’m not sure she would be a great bodyguard. She even at point
downloads an e-book on how to be a bodyguard.
Then
there’s the other plot about the case involving the serial killer, who is
killing people because of a case involving child pornography. The evidence was
planted on the defendant’s computer, but an overly eager D.A. railroaded him,
and he ends up being killed in prison. The killer, who we are introduced to at
the beginning of the novel, calls himself Trig, though that isn’t his real
name. For most the novel, we really don’t know why he is killing people because
of this case.
This isn’t
a bad Stephen King novel, but it tends to have too much going on. I kept
waiting for the two cases to connect, but they only slightly do. There’s also
another subplot about a pop star, that doesn’t add much to the main plot.
There’s a
lot going on in this book, and it’s not a bad read, but it’s not one of Stephen
King’s best novels. Readers online have been divided on what King sees in this
Holly character, and while she’s not a bad character, it seems kind of weird he
keeps going back to her. I get the sense King always wanted to write crime
novels, as his proses do often have a pulpy flavour to them. Even at one point
in the novel, he names drops a book by John Sandford, who is famous for this
kind of mystery and thriller books the Holly series are trying to be like. Not
to say I don’t like when King drops his supernatural bag of tricks and decides
to try to write more to down earth horrors. He has done that well in the past,
and he doesn’t do it so bad either here. Either way, this review is kind of
mixed.
A lot of
people also point out how political Stephen King’s novels have become. A lot of
novelists I read have gotten political lately, some on the right, some on the
left, but that doesn’t bother me too much. Writing can be largely a personal thing,
and even fiction writing is going to warrant some of your viewpoints going into
the story. I know that annoys a lot of people, but I find it happens when
someone is writing a longer piece like a novel. This is solid mid teir King.
