Stephen King books are a lot of things, but rarely are they tedious or dull, which is why I was shocked at how often I found myself bored and my attention drifting off with this one, especially since I was listening to the audio. Since most of the positives were towards the end of the novel, I’ll begin with the negatives. There were some really good parts, but then plenty of low points as well. I confess, my feelings were all over the place with Billy Summers. As a result, what we have here is something akin to a novel within a novel, the present story featuring embedded snippets from Billy’s work-in-progress which is essentially an autobiographical account of his life. But with months still to go before the big hit, there’s a lot of downtime, and even though his new identity is only a cover story concocted for the job, Billy thinks, what the hell, and decides to try his hand at this whole writing thing anyway. There will also be lots of challenges in the way, but if he can pull it off, the money will set him up for life.Īnd so, Billy moves into the quiet neighborhood his clients have arranged for him under the guise of being an author looking for a quiet place to work on his new book. Not only is the client paying $2 million, the biggest offer Billy’s ever received, the hit will also require him to go undercover for months in a small conservative town, living under a whole different identity. However, as these things always go, there is one last job, and it’s a doozy. When we find Billy at the beginning of this story though, he has come to grow weary of the assassin’s lifestyle and is contemplating retirement. His only rule? The target must be a truly bad person, because he will not go after innocents. Ever since leaving the military, he’s been making a living as a killer for hire, making a name for himself as being the best in the business because he always delivers. The eponymous protagonist of Billy Summers is a former sniper in the Marines and a veteran of the second Iraq War. Admittedly it wasn’t a complete miss, but personally speaking, it was also far from anything I would call a hit. In any case, I became too overconfident, and in hindsight I probably should have passed on this one. Maybe it’s because I had a rather good run with the last few King novels I read, or the fact that the synopsis to this one sounded a bit different from what I was expecting. With Billy Summers though, I broke with that trend. Stephen King books can be hit or miss with me, which is why I don’t often pick them up right at release, preferring to hang back to see what other reviews are saying before I take the plunge myself. Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio (August 3, 2021)

This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own. I received a review copy from the publisher. Book Review: Billy Summers by Stephen King

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