Stephen King - Billy Summers

Biography

Stephen King (born September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine) is an American novelist and short story writer and master story teller. He is known as the "King of Horror" and over a long career has sold over 350 Million books.

In total, Stephen King has written over 64 novels and over 200 short stories. He has also written a number of books on writing and being a writer. The book that launched him onto the world stage though was his 4th novel, 'Carrie', which was published in 1974 and became a movie in 1976.

Billy Summers

For most people, regardless of what he writes, Stephen King is ‘just a horror novelist’. He is however a master storyteller, quite capable of turning his hand to realistic, hard boiled crime novels like Billy Summers. Billy Summers is a hit man who needs one more hit to set him up for a good retirement and he only kills bad guys.

This is a novel of two halves, the first is slow and languorous, brilliantly setting the scene and introducing us to the characters. The second half is murky and torrid, full of twists and suspense, along with more double dealing than the Caesars Palace bankruptcy case a few years ago. Billy Summers should not work, but because Stephen King is so good a story teller, it just does. Hopefully it will open up his excellent narratives to more than just horror fans. It did me.

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