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'Kid' Rocks
The Colorado Kid by Stephen King
There are two things that are apt to happen upon
reading The Colorado Kid, the latest outing by
legendary horror writer Stephen King. In fact,
there are apt to be more than a few things that
happen after reading the author’s latest yarn,
ayuh, and a fascinating yarn it is. King remains
an underrated contemporary master of
storytelling and if there is any question as to
whether his talent has waned over the years after
producing nearly 50 novels, including the
unforgettable Carrie, The Shining, Cujo and The
Stand, that query is properly answered here.
What is often forgotten about King, despite the
fact that he has singlehandedly changed and
saved the direction of contemporary horror, is
that sans horror he is an excellent storyteller. In
The Colorado Kid, King lends his talents to a line
of hard case crime pulp fiction novels issued
recently by Dorchester Publishing, which include
other authors such as Richard Aleas (Little Girl
Lost), Max Phillips (Fade to Blonde) and Wade
Miller (Touch of Evil). They are softcover dime
store novel sized books your father probably
carried in his coat pocket, and are designed to
look like such with their Orbik drawn covers
featuring sultry sirens and suspicious looking men
in overcoats.
Kid is the story of two old newspapermen from
Maine who spend one afternoon telling their
intern about a mystery involving a man who was
found dead on a beach back in 1980. Nearly
twenty-six years later the men tell the story in
relish, but the more they explain to the inquisitive
intern the less she understands. What baffles
both the intern and the reader is that nothing
makes sense, including why the man was on the
beach, where he was from, what he was doing in
Maine, how he got to a remote region of Maine as
quickly as he did, and last but not least, was he
murdered.
The audience is apt to be confounded as King
teases and rivets the reader to such an intriguing
tale, all the while egging them on to solve the
mystery before the end of the book. With King’s
talent for relaying New England dialogue, the tale
comes off as comfortably as a fireside ghost
story, and the reader is likely not to get enough in
turning this case six ways to Sunday in order to
solve it. What is also apt to happen is that the
reader is likely to take issue with how the author
resolves the matter, but that’s neither here nor
there as the issue is the mystery itself.
King’s protagonists, Dave and Vince, are old
fogey types we’ve seen in previous works by this
author, in particular The Storm of the Century,
and his ingenue Stephanie is a variation on his
previous heroines. All the same this short novel
is a gem and King as comfortable and reliable as
a favorite pair of shoes, taking us on a journey
through not only an intriguing mystery but also
once again the way of life of the New Englander,
who keep secrets to themselves, say the word fair
as fay-yuh, and the word ayuh as if a variation on
the words Oh, yeah! P&A
reading The Colorado Kid, the latest outing by
legendary horror writer Stephen King. In fact,
there are apt to be more than a few things that
happen after reading the author’s latest yarn,
ayuh, and a fascinating yarn it is. King remains
an underrated contemporary master of
storytelling and if there is any question as to
whether his talent has waned over the years after
producing nearly 50 novels, including the
unforgettable Carrie, The Shining, Cujo and The
Stand, that query is properly answered here.
What is often forgotten about King, despite the
fact that he has singlehandedly changed and
saved the direction of contemporary horror, is
that sans horror he is an excellent storyteller. In
The Colorado Kid, King lends his talents to a line
of hard case crime pulp fiction novels issued
recently by Dorchester Publishing, which include
other authors such as Richard Aleas (Little Girl
Lost), Max Phillips (Fade to Blonde) and Wade
Miller (Touch of Evil). They are softcover dime
store novel sized books your father probably
carried in his coat pocket, and are designed to
look like such with their Orbik drawn covers
featuring sultry sirens and suspicious looking men
in overcoats.
Kid is the story of two old newspapermen from
Maine who spend one afternoon telling their
intern about a mystery involving a man who was
found dead on a beach back in 1980. Nearly
twenty-six years later the men tell the story in
relish, but the more they explain to the inquisitive
intern the less she understands. What baffles
both the intern and the reader is that nothing
makes sense, including why the man was on the
beach, where he was from, what he was doing in
Maine, how he got to a remote region of Maine as
quickly as he did, and last but not least, was he
murdered.
The audience is apt to be confounded as King
teases and rivets the reader to such an intriguing
tale, all the while egging them on to solve the
mystery before the end of the book. With King’s
talent for relaying New England dialogue, the tale
comes off as comfortably as a fireside ghost
story, and the reader is likely not to get enough in
turning this case six ways to Sunday in order to
solve it. What is also apt to happen is that the
reader is likely to take issue with how the author
resolves the matter, but that’s neither here nor
there as the issue is the mystery itself.
King’s protagonists, Dave and Vince, are old
fogey types we’ve seen in previous works by this
author, in particular The Storm of the Century,
and his ingenue Stephanie is a variation on his
previous heroines. All the same this short novel
is a gem and King as comfortable and reliable as
a favorite pair of shoes, taking us on a journey
through not only an intriguing mystery but also
once again the way of life of the New Englander,
who keep secrets to themselves, say the word fair
as fay-yuh, and the word ayuh as if a variation on
the words Oh, yeah! P&A
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