HOLLY by Stephen King

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl's desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harbouring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie's disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmanoeuvre the shockingly twisted professors.

When a new Stephen King book comes out, I get really excited because I know I'm going to lose myself for days. 

Holly Gibney has seen a lot. Now, in the middle of the pandemic, she's suffered a loss that awakens a bunch of complicated emotions, memories, and revelations. So, when a woman reaches out about her missing daughter, she decides to take the case. And as soon as she begins her investigation, she realises this disappearance might lead her down a very dark and twisted path...

Wow. This is definitely another King hit! I seriously couldn't stop reading, and pretty much read the last half in one night.

There's something intoxicating about King's writing. His characters—whether pure and kind, or rotten to the core—drag me into the story every single time. And don't let go until I race to the end.

The mystery always grabs me enough to keep reading. The story intrigues me so much I can't stop thinking about it, even when I'm not reading. And his writing style is smooth and crisp, full of enough horror to satisfy my infatuation with dark fiction. But what gets me the most is the humanity contained within the pages of every tale.

So much of the gory and terrifying horror he writes about is always grounded in real life situations we recognise all too well. He just has a tendency to push past the threshold and shoves his Constant Readers down the darkest road possible. And this story is no exception.

Plus, Holly has become one of my favourite characters. As well as Jerome and Barbara Robinson. These three make an awesome team and I can't wait to read more of their adventures.

Holly is a thrilling novel that grabbed a hold of me from the first sentence and refused to let go. The barbaric acts at the centre of these despicable crimes are straight out of a true-crime show, and will teach you to never judge someone by their age. Also, the way he deals with the pandemic is so true to life, it's chilling.

Thank you Hachette Australia for sending me a copy of this awesome book.

Holly, September 2023, ISBN 9781399712927, Hodder & Stoughton