Joyland

Let's just get it out there: I feel like SK was given a boatload of money to turn an unfinished story into something that Hard Case could publish. So, what's going on with this book? Readers will be happy to know that they can find that wonderful King prose they've fallen in love with. It's no secret that the guy can tell a story. Often, King struggles with plot. On the back cover, the synopsis claims that this is not only a mystery, but also a horror and coming-of-age story. Now, I'm not sure I completely agree with that assessment, but I will say that the book seems to be none of those simultaneously. Tone shifts drastically from page to page. And unlike most SK works, there are no chapters, only breaks.

As far as mystery goes: yes, technically there's a “mystery.” In all fairness, many King novels have some sort of mystery. The cover and synopsis might lead one to believe that there's some sort of Spade/Marlowe thing going on, but that couldn't be further from the truth. In regards to horror, this is absolutely not a horror book. There is a supernatural element to the story, but nothing outright terrifying like the ghosts that have appeared in previous King works. Now, I can agree this is a nice coming-of-age tale. Young Devin goes from schoolboy to grownup in just under 300 pages and so do new friends and family.

As for the ending, we all know what Stephen can and can't do with these. This one seems rushed and lazy. I don't want to get into spoiler territory, so let's just say it was very bad.

tl;dr version: Great writing, not a mystery novel, great characters, bad ending

Check out the Mr Mercedes trilogy if you'd like to see SK doing crime, especially the first two books