Billy Summers by Stephen King is a rare contemporary fiction novel, there is the tiniest level of supernatural when character’s interact with the charred remains of the Shining’s Overlook Hotel. But other than that this story plays it straight. I think there’s two ways of reviewing this book one as a Stephen King up against his lexicon of other great works, where this books is ranked very low on the pile, or the one I’m going to review it if this was any writer’s work, which makes it instantly better and more clout. Billy Summers is not a great novel but there are moments where the narrative surprised me, the characters’ made me feel emotions, and the writing is really good. The story reminded me of three movie/tv shows that were all combined Shooter, the Mark Wahlberg movie, Barry, the Bill Hader HBO show, and The Professional, with Natalie Portman. If all three of these films had a baby that was made into a novel we would have Billy Summers. The beginning is interesting but almost cliche to the hitman story, then in the middle it takes a turn, turning into a redemption piece, the ending was too quiet I needed more of a bang but we get a whimper. The characters are the best part, there’s a lot of little tiny side characters that I liked instantly. I will speak on the controversial aspect of the book, Stephen King does not like Trump it is all over his Twitter feed. There was some review bomb because of Lines and passages from this book at first I was like there’s a couple I don’t get all the hate, but then they kept coming. My issue as a reader is it valid to the story or to the character, or is it a distraction. This fell in to the distraction, a couple of the references felt right, but many felt forced and took away from the story.

Plot Summary: Billy Summers is a hitman on his last job, the pay out is 2 million his biggest pay day by far but the catch is he has to be a part of the community as cover as a writer. Billy decides since his cover is a writer maybe he should write his bio, not to publish but just for him. We get a tragic backstory and a lesson that hitman aren’t born but created. Billy has a code of only bad people and no kids. The man Billy is going to kill is a bad man and the big pay is for making it public, in front of the court house. The killing is easy the getting away is the hard part made harder by the by wanting to provide the way out, something they have never done before. Billy fears a trap and sets his own way out, it might work but he sees a fellow in need is he going to me come the bad guy or the good guy he thinks he is? Will he risk everything to save someone else.

What I Liked: The characters are really great. I love how King writes neighborhoods they’re always filled with colorful characters and are easy to form a kinship to. I liked the writing aspect especially the beginning as he finds his voice, all the war stuff gets a little convoluted but the childhood years of writing are great. I like the turn and the dilemma of whether to help or not, because it can and probably will lead to getting caught. The references to the Overlook and it still being a presence of evil 40 years ago.

What I Disliked: The reveal of who set up the hit, was practically a nobody and had one of the most complex murder plots before even Billy was involved. There was no epic battle it is just over a little too easy. The trump references in metaphors are just too much and are a distraction to the story. The long sections about Billy in the war some are good but there was way too much fat and redundancy left. There was no drama to the assassin at all.

Recommendation: The story has a lot of heart the writing really good at sometimes and felt generic and mediocre at times. There some nice turns but as a whole the story measures out to an okay. I can not recommend my followers to read this one. Billy Summers, Rage, Roadwork, The Dead Zone, and The Colorado Kid (I did not like book 6 of the Dark Tower Song for Susannah but since it’s a part of the Dark Tower as a whole it won’t fall in this distinction) are the rare Stephen King novels that I can’t recommend. He has some many other great works you should check out before this one. I rated Billy Summers 3 out of 5 stars.