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Today is publication day for Hard Case Crime’s third Stephen King novel, Later<\/em><\/a>. Although King is generally thought of as a horror writer, he has written numerous crime short stories, novellas and novels, giving them a unique twist. In Part I of this three-part series, I looked at King\u2019s earliest involvement with crime fiction<\/a>. In Part II, I explored his more recent writings in the genre, including his previous two books with Hard Case Crime and the Mercedes series<\/a>. Today, I review Later<\/em> and look ahead to King\u2019s next crime novel, Billy Summers<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jamie is twenty-two (in the year 2022) when he sets down his account of things that happened to him beginning at the age of three, when he first realized he could see dead people. At that early age, he barely had the vocabulary to explain what he was experiencing, but by the time he\u2019s six he can prove his talent to his mother, Tia. She’s known for a long time there was something unusual about him (once describing him as \u201cfey\u201d to a friend) but the details he provides about the late Mrs. Burkett are incontrovertible.<\/p>\n Tia Conklin is a literary agent who took over her older brother\u2019s agency when he suffered early onset dementia. She understands the implications of Jamie\u2019s revelation. The dead are compelled to answer truthfully whenever Jamie asks them questions, so widespread knowledge of his ability could leave him vulnerable to unscrupulous people. People die with secrets, and there will always be others who want to know those secrets.<\/p>\n It\u2019s ironic, then, that Tia is the first person to exploit his talent for her personal benefit. Jamie\u2019s Uncle Harry had invested heavily in a Ponzi scheme that collapsed with the 2008 economic crisis, leaving Jamie\u2019s mom in a difficult financial position that is compounded by the death of her most lucrative client, Regis Thomas. She concocts a scheme of her own to keep the creditors at bay and, in doing so, sets into motion a series of events that puts Jamie in mortal danger — from both humans and supernatural entities. The novel\u2019s third major character is Elizabeth Dutton, Detective 2nd<\/sup> Grade with the NYPD. Liz and Tia met at a book launch party for Thomas, author of a series of raunchy historical romances set in the Roanoke colony (Gregory Manchess\u2019s cover for The Secret of Roanoke<\/em> appears in the Hard Case Crime limited edition of Later<\/em>, shown above). Friendship turns into a more intimate relationship and Liz becomes a willing — albeit skeptical — participant in Tia\u2019s scheme. Jamie likes Liz most of the time, but he\u2019s jealous of how much of his mother\u2019s attention she \u201csteals\u201d from him. Unfortunately, Liz — who ultimately reveals her true nature as a racist and a birther — is one of those unscrupulous people about whom Tia warned him.<\/p>\n A subplot features a serial bomber who calls himself Thumper. For over a decade, his bombs have caused mayhem and grave injuries in and around the five boroughs of New York, but it isn\u2019t until 2009 (when Jamie is 9 years old) that his bombs kill someone. This causes him to accelerate his reign of terror, with increasingly sophisticated and deadly devices. While being forced to assist Liz in determining the location of Thumper\u2019s coup de gr\u00e2ce, Jamie discovers new things about the world of the dead: a revenant who resists answering his questions, and something far worse and more disturbing than a ghost.<\/p>\n The supernatural aspects of Later<\/em> are reminiscent of several King works. There are terrible entities outside our universe that seek access to our world. Previous examples of this include Pennywise from It<\/em>, the possessed ghost of Sara Tidwell from Bag of Bones<\/em> and the title character from The Outsider<\/em>, as well as the disturbing revelations at the end of Revival<\/em>. The concept of a ghost being possessed by another entity is unique to King, to the best of my knowledge.<\/p>\n \u201cI sometimes think my life was like a Dickens novel, only with swearing,\u201d Jamie says from his 22-year-old perspective. The novel\u2019s title comes from the fact that Jamie is too young to understand the import of many of the things happening to him while they are happening. He\u2019s also not privy to all the details surrounding a particular incident. \u201cI found out later\u201d is a common mantra for which he apologizes in the prologue. As an older (although still quite young) man, Jamie can fill in details unavailable to his younger self.<\/p>\n Later<\/em> builds to a climax where fifteen-year-old Jamie is forced to summon an unlikely \u201cally\u201d to help him survive a perilous situation, but the story doesn\u2019t end there. Jamie is forced to confront another secret that changes everything he thought he knew about himself.<\/p>\n The paperback edition includes a 22-page Joyland<\/em> excerpt, so don\u2019t be misled by the number of pages remaining!<\/p>\n Later<\/em> is clearly part of the Stephen King Universe. There are a couple of 19s, one direct and the other mathematical. Jamie Conklin is familiar with Shawshank Prison from the movie. The name of a drug lord will have some people thinking of \u2018Salem\u2019s Lot<\/em> and\/or a star of the recent remake of The Stand<\/em>.<\/p>\n In addition to having Jamie quote him from On Writing<\/em>, King adds a few nods to some of his writer friends: there\u2019s a lawyer named Grisham, and Regis Thomas\u2019s habit of writing the last sentence of his novels first is drawn from an anecdote King likes to tell about John Irving. The mystery of the colony that disappeared from Roanoke has popped up from time to time in other King books.<\/p>\n Beyond these elements, though, there are a few others I won\u2019t spoil so you\u2019ll have the delight of discovering them for yourselves, including a certain Nepalese\/Tibetan ritual. There\u2019ll be no missing them thanks to the academic ruminations of one Professor Burkett.<\/p>\n King talks about the ideas that came together to create the story behind Later<\/em> in this AP interview from last week<\/a>. He will appear on The Drew Barrymore Show<\/em> tomorrow (March 3) to discuss the book. Maybe they’ll even reminisce about Firestarter<\/em>!<\/p>\n Here is the publisher’s description of the novel:<\/p>\n Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He\u2019s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he\u2019ll\u00a0do the job\u00a0only\u00a0if the target is a truly bad guy.\u00a0And now\u00a0Billy wants out. But\u00a0first\u00a0there is one last hit. Billy is\u00a0among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n How about everything.<\/p>\n This spectacular can\u2019t-put-it-down novel is part war story, part love letter to small town America and the people who live there, and it features one of\u00a0the most compelling and surprising duos in King fiction, who set out to avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man. It\u2019s about love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one last shot at redemption.<\/p>\n You won\u2019t put this story down, and you won\u2019t forget Billy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You can read a brief excerpt from the novel here.<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/kingcrime-later-trade.jpg?resize=220%2C350&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Stephen King\u2019s Hard Case Crime books could all be considered crime novels but, as I mentioned last time, each one has ventured a little farther into supernatural territory. As narrator James \u201cJamie\u201d Conklin reminds readers on several occasions, Later<\/em> is a horror story.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/kingcrime-later-limited.jpg?resize=800%2C555&ssl=1\")
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<\/a>King isn’t finished with crime fiction! His next book, Billy Summers<\/em>, due out from Scribner on August 3, 2021, is about \u00a0a decorated Iraq war vet turned killer-for-hire with a very specific type of victim.\u00a0 He first mentioned the concept of this book during his conversation with Grisham last April<\/a>, saying he’d originally set the novel in 2020 but decided to move it back to 2019 because one scene involved sending a couple of characters on a cruise to get them out of action for a while.<\/p>\n