Ordinary Thunderstorms

I was flipping through a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly and read Stephen King's column in which he was recommending books. This was his current number one choice and I'm happy I followed his advice. This was one of those rare books that are hard to put down. At first, I was annoyed by the protagonist, Adam Kindred. Although he had his reasons, he does something very stupid in the beginning that is the catalyst for this tale. But events progress from there and Adam proves to be not so stupid. To be fair, he realizes immediately afterward how stupid his initial actions were. But basically, this is the story of a character who loses everything and then takes off from there. He's a young guy in London with no money, home, or possessions. The police and a hitman are looking for him. It was very interesting to see how the story progressed.

So now Stephen King's recommendations that I've followed up on have been hits 2 out of 3 times. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami was a fun read, but Dispatch, by Bentley Little I tossed half-read. Also, I bought Ordinary Thunderstorms as a paperback while on vacation in Sweden. But here, it's only available as a hardcover. Over on Amazon.com the average customer rating for this book is only 3 stars but I've long since given up trusting the hoi polloi to be arbiters of good taste. Philistines!