Holly is back. This is the sixth story in which we meet Holly Gibney. Mr Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch, The Outsider, If it Bleeds and now Holly. I know a lot of readers are fed up with Holly. Some even say they will buy this book but not read it. They just want to complete their collection. Go figure.

I read it and I like Holly. I don’t want the next book to be about Holly, but I like her and enjoy having her as the lead in this book. But let’s not focus on her, Holly or no Holly there is a great story in this book. It’s a story of two elderly professors (Rodney and Emily Harris) who believe that by eating other people they can keep themselves healthy and repair their own bodies. The bodies they need they get by kidnapping people, people that they see as livestock. People that they force to eat raw liver before they kill them since raw liver makes their body even more healthy…at least for the ones eating them.

Holly gets involved with this when she is hired by Bonnie’s mother who wants Holly to find her daughter. Or at least find out what happened to her. Of course Holly solves the mystery but not without getting in rather big trouble herself.

There are a lot of things I like about this book. I like that the elderly couple are just that - old people. They aren’t an ancient species that’s been living on humans for hundreds of years. They are people that just believe that if they eat people, they will stay healthy and live longer. I also like that Bonnie didn’t make it. I know it might sound harsh but if she had it wouldn’t have worked, and it would have felt fake. Now she dies in a horrible way, and we really know that Rodney and Emily are horrible people. I even, for a short time, thought that this was it for Holly and I liked that feeling. I liked that I didn’t know if she would make it or not. Often you know that the hero will survive but here I felt that it could have gone either way. Maybe King felt he was done with her and would let her end up in a woodcutter? Why not? I also like how King has incorporated the Covid pandemic in the story even if it does date the story which might be a bad thing in the long run.

One thing that I could have done without was the Trump hate. Don’t get me wrong. I totally understand why King put it in there and I have no problem with him thinking and feeling the way he does about Trump, but it felt a bit too much of a personal thing instead of something the characters would actually say. It’s a bit like when you go to see a 3D movie and all during the movie the characters keep poking broomsticks and other stuff at you (without it really having anything to do with the plot) just to really show you that this is a 3D movie. There are less and less times King does this though as the book goes on but if you ask me, he could have saved that stuff for X (formerly known as Twitter).


The audio edition is read by Justine Lupe who plays Holly in the Mr Mercedes adaptation and she does a great job narrating it!

Holly is a really good book (and I’m so happy that it didn’t contain anything supernatural) and I enjoyed it a lot and will probably read it again soon. And I also hope to meet up with Holly again but first we need a few Holly free books I think. She is a bit like your favorite aunt. It’s fun when she comes to visit but once she has and has gone back home you need some time until you want her to stop by again.