Billy Summers is a killer, a hitman for hire, but he’ll only kill bad guys.
What did I think of Billy Summers… Let me start off by saying this is the first Stephen King book I’ve read - criminal, I know. I love all the movies and I own all the books but have I ever actually cracked a spine? No. THE SHAME - I feel it. So was this the best book to introduce me to the king of horror? No, probably not, because this one isn’t even horror! This is a solid crime and thriller - there are no demonic clowns or killer cars. This is the swan song of Billy’s hitman career.
I got sucked into it very quickly. Stephen King paints small town America so vividly; there’s enough detail to make me believe I’m attending the ratty little carnivals, watering my own front yard back to life, and eating Corinne Ackerman’s sugar cookies. Billy’s final job as a hitman involves him staying in said small town and seamlessly blending into day-to-day life until he can take the shot and kill the bad man. His cover is an author writing a book. But there’s something that just seems off about this job and Billy’s starting to feel bad about deceiving all of these people.
‘He’s a good guy stuck in a bad job’. That’s how Billy is described on the back of the book - he’s a GOOD guy in a BAD job. But can you really be a good guy when you kill people for a living? Even if those people deserve to die? Billy is just a self-aware bad guy and I read this as the story of an anti-hero.
Billy actually starts writing a book - an autobiography and King weaves Billy’s childhood and war experiences into the story which I enjoyed (usually I enjoyed these passages more than the story at present and found myself waiting for Billy’s character to get a chance to sit down and write again). I can’t express all my feelings about this book because to do that would give away too much of the plot, but about halfway through the book the story takes a turn, a turn I wasn’t expecting at all. A relationship forms between Billy and another character which is completely unpredictable (hence me not telling you) and the story evolves from there to a truly satisfying ending. When I first finished, I admit, I was disappointed. I slowly closed the book and thought “no, that’s not okay” but the more I think about it, the more content I am with the end and I don’t think any other ending would have been acceptable.
The one thing I will say I didn’t enjoy was the repetition. I feel like the book could have been 100 pages shorter had every action/thought not been repeated at least once… It got to the point where it felt like Stephen King thought I was dumb and needed to constantly be reminded about something I had just read? I appreciate detail - I love being transported into a book by vivid descriptions and atmospheric language. I just thought maybe the repetition was serving a purpose - that I needed to focus more on what was being repeated because it would become more important later but that was never the case. I’m wondering if this is something common in Stephen King’s writing? Either way I’m excited to read his other books now and compare!
Trigger warnings: graphic violence and sexual abuse.
— Rachel