Sequels are so rare in Stephen King’s oeuvre that a new one is always worth noticing. (I’m not counting any of the Dark Tower books as sequels, but rather as installments of a larger story.) King has only written two before now, Black House (with Peter Straub) and Doctor Sleep. Finders Keepers is a different beast; Black House and Doctor Sleep took place decades after their predecessors, but Finders Keepers takes place just a scant few years after Mr. Mercedes, King’s nasty little 2014 thriller. But FK pivots, and chooses not to focus on Mercedes‘ main trio of Bill, Jerome, and Holly. King shifts the focus away from the three of them, which puts Finders Keepers in the unique position of establishing Stephen King’s first shared universe. (Again, not counting the Dark Tower. With the exception of Wizard and Glass and The Wind Through the Keyhole [arguably], those books are linear, damn it!)
Finders Keepers starts with the 1978 murder of American novelist John Rothstein, author of a popular series of books starring a character named Jimmy Gold. Rothstein’s murderer is a particularly nasty piece of work named Morris Bellamy, who quickly becomes one of King’s best modern antagonists. Bellamy is smart but vicious, and he kills Rothstein not for money but for revenge – you see, Rothstein’s final Jimmy Gold novel saw Gold sell out and become a square, something Bellamy can’t abide. His taunt of “genius” gets more menacing every time he says it, and when he kills Rothstein, it’s almost a relief. That’s not a spoiler; Rothstein’s murder happens in the first few pages, and motivates almost everyone’s actions. Bellamy’s in particular – along with Rothstein’s money, he steals dozens of notebooks, which unbeknownst to him hold two more Jimmy Gold novels.
“You’re a common thief, my friend. And how stupid to steal what you can never sell.”
“Shut up, genius, I’m warning you.”
What I liked most about Finders Keepers is the sheer scale on which King operates. Bellamy goes to prison for 36 years, putting him out in 2014, by which time the notebooks are in the hands of a young kid named Peter Saubers, whose father, in a nice bit of connective plotting, was injured in the attack on the city center carried out by Brady Hartsfield, the titular villain of Mr. Mercedes. (Bill Hodges still visits a near-catatonic Brady in the hospital, a nice touch.) But to be honest, my actual favorite part was this: Finders Keepers is basically a book-length paean to literature. The love of it motivates Pete and Bellamy, and the welcome digressions that King goes on, extolling the virtues of great American authors like O’Connor and Faulkner, are one of the book’s genuine pleasures.
But I do take issue with the narrative structure. For much of Finders Keepers, Bill, Jerome, and Holly exist on the periphery; Bill doesn’t even meet Pete until well over 300 pages into the book, and everything with Bellamy comes to a head rather quickly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a satisfying – and brutal – climax, but it robs Finders Keepers of the cat-and-mouse tension that Mr. Mercedes defined itself by. That small quibble notwithstanding, this is a compulsively readable book; it’s hard to put down, and the ending sets up what’s sure to be a hell of a part three. Finders Keepers came out only a year after Mr. Mercedes, so please don’t make us wait too long, Mr. King.
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