Wake up, genius. 

The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn’t published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel.

Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Saubers finds the treasure, and now it is Pete and his family that Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson must rescue from the ever-more deranged and vengeful Morris when he’s released from prison after thirty-five years. 

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS FOR MR. MERCEDES!!!

Goddamn, Uncle Stevie, LET ME CATCH MY BREATH A MINUTE!!! Finders Keepers was fucking breathless, compulsively readable, and wicked intense!! I greatly preferred this entry in the Bill Hodges trilogy over Mr. Mercedes!

What surprised me most about this book is how light it is on…well, Bill Hodges! Bill & Holly & Jerome definitely take a bit of a backseat in this one, at least in the early going. 

This is the story of two obsessive readers, Morris Bellamy and Pete Saubers, separated by many years…one a criminal and one a student, and seemingly destined to cross paths in horrific & violent ways. In the late 1970’s, Morris Bellamy murders John Rothstein, his (Morris’s) favorite author, then mostly a recluse. In Rothstein’s safe, Morris finds a treasure trove of cash & unpublished work, some of which completes the Jimmy Gold saga, originally a trio of books, the ending of which left Morris…unhappy. It’s impossible to not think of another of King’s NUMBER ONE FANS here, Ms. Annie Wilkes. Knowing Stephen King is not just an obsessive writer, but an obsessive reader as well, it’s easy to see why this particular theme interests him. 

Before he is locked up (for a different & horrible crime), Morris buries his treasure behind his house, confident it will be there when he gets out of prison. Only, Morris spends quite a bit more time behind bars than he bargained for. 

Flash forward to around 2009, and Morris’s old house is occupied by the Saubers family. They are struggling to make ends meet, as the father, Tom, was seriously injured in the City Center Massacre depicted in Mr. Mercedes (and again in Finders Keepers). And in a coincidence that definitely required a little suspension of disbelief, high-school student Pete Saubers, he himself a massive John Rothstein fan, finds that cash & all those unpublished works buried behind his house. 

And then Morris gets paroled. And shit gets crazy. And dark. And very, very violent.

I think one of my only real issues with Mr. Mercedes was that the final act felt way too long…it’s hard to handle THAT MUCH INTENSITY for such a long chunk of a book!! Finders Keepers feels quite a bit more balanced, and I think the payoff is way more exciting as a result. 

I’m fully invested in these characters. Bill & Holly’s friendship has so much life to it…they really complement one another, in quirky and unexpected ways. And of course, the presence of Brady Hartsfield looms quite large, and I expect even more Bill v. Brady in End of Watch!  Can’t wait!!