Before that, it’s heavy on inner monologue as Billy thinks through all the possible consequences of his actions and the motivations of the people around him. It’s when he finds an audience for his story that the book really starts to find its groove. Billy has always told himself he only kills bad men who deserve it, but when he starts having doubts about his final job, he distracts himself by writing his life story. “He feels like a man emerging from a vivid dream.” It’s not hard to imagine King himself somewhere in Maine doing the same decades ago after bringing a chapter of “The Stand” to life. “Billy saves what he’s written, gets up, and staggers a little because his feet feel like they’re in another dimension,” writes King. King’s adept at shifting voices, from the “dumb self” narrative voice Billy uses in his story, to the killer whose brain never stops wondering who’s trying to manipulate him. The passages where Billy writes his life story are some of the best in the book. In what other profession could he keep such weird hours and be responsible to no one but his creative muse, right? A sniper in the Iraq war, now an assassin for hire, Billy displays a “dumb self” to his clients while inside he’s very curious and introspective, having “even plowed his way through ‘Infinite Jest.’” So when he takes one last job that requires him to have a long-term cover story, he chooses writer. “Billy Summers” tells the story of the title character - his past and his present. Or put another way: He’s very good at finding new ways to explore themes that have interested him his entire career. “Billy Summers,” by Stephen King (Scribner)Īmong the many remarkable things about Stephen King is that he has yet to run out of ideas. It’s also very much a part of ours as well, with a few Donald Trump references and a foreshadowing of the COVID-19 crisis as Billy hunkers down and has to watch life go by outside, less because of a pandemic and more because of his morally questionable chosen profession. Those worried he’s gone full Raymond Chandler, never fear: King makes it clear that Billy Summers very much exists in his creepily familiar world. King’s known for his literary villains, yet in creating his killer title protagonist, he exquisitely gets into the mind of a hitman and roots around in there to figure out what kind of person would do wetwork, the loneliness involved for those who choose that as a career path and the effect it would have on friends and loved ones. Actually is as good at the hard-boiled prose – in this case, the tale of an extremely effective assassin trying to get out after one last job – as he is the scary stuff.

King summers