Billy Summers, Stephen King

I read recently King had a new book out. Hadn’t read him in years. When I was in 6th grade my teacher, Mr. Palmer, used to provide us kiddos an hour of reading a day, and a few of us would read King books because the teacher did… Cujo, The Stand, Salem’s Lot. We loved’em. Billy Summers is a hit man with a conscious, who only kills ‘bad people’. He’s likeable from the beginning and stays that way throughout. It’s his last hit for a big pay day, however, things go wrong of course, and we follow his journey to the end. The first 400 pages kept me enthralled, then let’s up a bit until the last 50 pages. The ending is superb, as well as it ends as only it can. I like that. I don’t like an ending all the time with smiles and happy faces. Life doesn’t work that way, and Stephen and Billy knows that. Small-town America, the Iraq war, chance meetings, local folk. Made me long for living in small-town America again. I’m trying. Life doesn’t have to be so complicated. You can live basic and be happy, and love, and cry, and smile, and long for a better life, and be content. It’s always there in front of us, waiting.