Never Flinch, by Stephen King.
Shy, middle-aged proprietor of Finders Keepers Private
Detective Agency Holly Gibney has become a firm favourite with tens of
thousands of King fans after several hair-raising semi-supernatural adventures
in which she found courage and determination that her domineering mother (since
deceased, thank goodness!) would never have thought her capable. Now she has firm friends and a viable
business: life is good – until a woman
is found murdered on a popular lakeside path.
Holly is friends with Izzy Jaynes, one of the detectives
in the local police department; Izzy respects Holly’s skills and promises to
keep her name out of sight – which is very much a part of Holly’s ethics: at this stage they are just batting the
breeze and swapping ideas – until another body is found, with a name on a piece
of paper clutched in its hand, just like the first. A serial killer is operating, and as the
bodies mount up the names turn out to be those of the jury in a long ago murder trial who found
the accused guilty of child sex abuse. He was subsequently murdered in prison by
another inmate, then exonerated posthumously when new evidence (which should
have been collected at the time) was found.
The whole city is buzzing with the
scandal, and to fuel the flames, a wildly controversial feminist is on tour of
mid-west centres – she loves audience
confrontation, thumbing her nose and middle finger at all the religious
right-to-lifers: she’s ready to die for
the cause! Which she doesn’t – but her
hapless assistant has bleach thrown in her face and avoids anthrax by the
merest whisker. Oh well, Okay then, it’s
time to hire a bodyguard. And she
decides on Holly (who never applied for the job but is perfect because she
hides successfully in crowds and no-one is more observant).
Last but never least, Sista Bessie, an acclaimed soul and blues singer is
starting her mighty comeback tour in this very same city in the very same venue
on consecutive nights – with a serial killer operating too, so the suspense
should be unbearable.
But it isn’t. I think this is one of King’s novels that has
missed the mark; as always his
characters are well-drawn but we know who did what, and when too soon, and
there are a number of mini-spoilers every now and then that (in my exalted
opinion) didn’t need to be there;
everything got slowed down as a consequence – BUT! Stephen King is still the relentlessly honest
chronicler of today’s Trump America, and ‘Never Flinch’ succeeds for that
reason alone. FOUR
STARS.
