Billy Summers – Stephen King

A contract killer takes one last job, one which has him decamping in place for months prior to the hit.  After the job is complete, he realizes that he was part of the contract and was not meant to survive.  As he plots his revenge, he makes a new friend, a young woman chewed up and spit out by life, who accompanies him on his travel west.  Can Billy get what is owed him while keeping his new friend safe and out of the life?

Billy Summers, the latest from Stephen King, is a straight crime story, aside from one instance of mystical nonsense which could have been dropped completely without impacting the story at all, which is a departure from his work.  This is a side of King that I have not had much experience with, aside from his work for the Hard Case Crime imprint, but I like it and I’ll certainly be on the lookout for more if it.