Bookpedia : Library : Genre : [Global:Letter]

ISBN: 1905834020

ListPrice: CDN$ 57.39

Edition: First Hardcover Edition

Illustrator: J.K. Potter

Summary: This isn't a horror novel. It's published by Hard Case Crime, known for hardboiled crime fiction by old and new writers, which some would say is a crime itself, as The Colarado Kid isn't that hardboiled. It's about the telling of a mystery involving a man found dead on a bench, in a small town where strange men dressed in suits aren't usually found dead for any apparent reason. The tale is told to a young reporter by her mentors whom you get to know well; they're memorable characters, despite the novel's short length. Who is the dead man? How did he die? Where is he from? This book is not a mystery. It's not hardboiled. Hell, it may not even be crime fiction. In the Afterward, which he seemed to write knowing the reader would think "What the hell?" after finishing the book, King explains why he wrote what he did, how it came about, and that he has no regrets about it: "...if you tell me I fell down on the job and didn't tell all of this story there was to tell, I say you're all wrong." He knows this isn't your traditional hardboiled story: "...even though The Colorado Kid is probably more bleu than outright noir, I think it has some of those old-fashioned kick-ass story-telling virtues." And it does. There's a mystery to solve, but it's the telling of the tale that hooks you, not any mystery's solution. I don't think this book should've been published by Hard Case Crime, though. Maybe as a collection of short-stories, or in serial form in The New Yorker.

ISBN: 0843955848

ListPrice: 5.99

Summary: From Publishers Weekly The Hard Case Crime series is a wonderful idea: a mix of original and reprinted hard-boiled detective novels by some of the best writers in the field, packaged to look like lurid 1940s and 1950s thrillers. And getting Stephen King to write a new novel as part of the series was quite a coup. King is the author of record when it comes to fiction set in America in recent decades, and here he is with a noir detective story. Alas, what he actually turned in was a cozy, a sort of Jan Karon take on the hard-boiled genre. And at the end, it turns out to be rather arty - if by "arty" you mean "doesn't answer any important questions." Fresh out of journalism school, Stephanie McCann is an intern at a weekly newspaper in an obscure corner off the coast of Maine. She is writing homey features and reporting on trivial stories, but she rather enjoys it. Then a big-city reporter comes to town to gather stories about "unsolved mysteries." The paper's owner and the managing editor send him away unsatisfied, and then tell Stephanie the only real unsolved mystery on the island. The banter between the two old men provides all kinds of local color, but it also means the pace of the storytelling is glacial. It takes most of chapter one to explain why they filch the cash the big-city reporter left to pay for a meal. We're in chapter five before they start telling the story that gives the book its title. Years earlier, two high school sweethearts found a dead body on the beach. There was no identification, and only a few items found with the body gave any hope of telling where he was from. It isn't until too many chapters later, after much meandering, that the old men tell Stephanie (and us) how they found out the man was from Colorado, which led to the identification of the body. Nor do we actually care, since none of the characters do. They're only telling the story in order to explain that it's not a story at all-a conclusion with which readers will heartily agree. The real mystery: why would the editors publish a story that will only frustrate anyone looking for the kind of hard-boiled detective novel they're promised on the cover? Stephen King is a very good writer, so even when telling a non story at elaborate length he is quite readable. I would have enjoyed this piece in a magazine. It's the misleading presentation that will rankle. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist King's latest is published by Hard Case Crime, a small imprint hell-bent on bringing the pulps back to life (see "Pulp Faction," BKL My 1 05). A contribution from the master of the horrible and fantastic--who clearly read a few paperbacks growing up--makes perfect sense. But oddly, this is less identifiably a genre work than King's other books. It's neither horror nor fantasy, and, despite the title, it's not a western. There are elements of mystery, but what King has written is actually from a much older tradition: the yarn. One afternoon, on a Maine island, two crusty old newspapermen tell a cub reporter about their investigation into the unusual appearance and death of a stranger. Despite the potential pitfalls of writing the whole thing as a conversation (some readers will tire of the oldsters' knee-slapping and folksy expressions), this is powerful storytelling. King appears to be fumbling in his tackle box when, in fact, he's already slipped the hook into our cheeks and is pulling us inexorably toward the bemusing, maddening--let's just say the ending won't appeal to everyone--final page. If it's ironic that King delivered an experiment to people who celebrate the art of formula, that's OK. One of the reasons the pulps remain popular is that, behind those uniformly lurid painted covers, there always lurked a few writerly surprises. Keir Graff Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved  See all Editorial Reviews