Bill Hodges, Jerome Robinson and Holly Gibney are all back for a second time in Finders Keepers but this time they are not the main characters This time it’s Morris Bellamy, Pete Saubers and the fictional character Jimmy Gold that plays the major parts. And it all starts back in 1978 with the murder of author John Rothstein…

Rothstein has retired as a writer but rumor has it that he has written a lot since then, stuff he hasn’t published. There might even be a follow-up to his three books about Jimmy Gold. Together with two friends Morris Bellamy robs Rothstein (and in the process murders him) and sure enough there is more written stuff, and a lot of it, written by hand in notebooks. Morris, who’s a big Rothstein fan, both wants the notebooks for himself and to sell them to make a lot of money but right there and then he needs to hide them. They are too hot to do anything with so he hides them and the same night he is arrested and sentenced to prison for more than 30 years. During these years Pete Saubers, also a big fan of Rothstein, finds the notebooks…

This is the setup for King’s Finders Keepers and as you can see our three friends aren’t in the setup. In fact it takes a good part of the book until we meet them at all. And when we do, Bill and Holly runs a business called…Finders Keepers. They find stolen stuff and return it to the owner. Bill is out in the fields and Holly runs the office. Jerome is off to college. Through Jerome’s sister who knows Pete’s sister they get involved with Morris and Pete and they end up playing a part in the books conclusion.

Finders Keepers has very much the same feel as Mr Mercedes. In fact I just listened to the audio version of Mr Mercedes before reading Finders Keepers and they work very well together. It’s just a small time jump between them but we recognize the characters (who each evolve even further here) and reading the two books back to back makes me have to think twice about whether certain scenes were in Mr Mercedes or in Finders Keepers.

The audio edition of Finders Keepers are narrated by Will Patton who also narrated Mr Mercedes and I must say that he does a great job and I’m very happy that they managed to get him to read both books. Hopefully he will also narrate the third book that’s probably out in 2016.

If you liked Mr Mercedes you will like Finders Keepers as well. I like them both a lot and even though they are different they connect perfectly to each other. The characters are great and personally I can’t wait to see how it all ends in the last book.

I would strongly suggest that you (re)read Mr Mercedes before Finders Keepers. It will give you a better understanding of the characters and what’s happened and why certain characters act like they do. Oh, and you will know how Brady Hartsfield is…