STEPHEN KING – The Colorado Kid.

Hard Case Crime. Paperback original; first printing, October 2005.

   Let me be the first to state that the authorial specter hovering over Stephen King’s latest is none other than George V. Higgins.

   Maybe it’s being from New England, but starting with the long monologue about why the Boston Globe reporter’s money is being slipped to the waitress, and in a clandestine fashion, and then recognizing that the book is one long alternating monologue among two aging Maine newspapermen attempting to instruct their young intern on the nature of mystery and the mystery of life, well, this is the sort of thing Higgins did in many of his books.

   And this slim volume succeeds as lecture, meditation and tall tale. Its brevity works in its favor. Any longer and it would get caught up in itself.

   Basically, this is the story of two old codgers enticing a young would-be reporter with the sort of sour wisdom old time newshounds expel with the ease and frequency they break wind: Kid, there are some things for which there are no answers, some mysteries that will never be solved.

   Want closure? Write fiction. This book is a creative gamble for King and a marketing gamble for Hard Case, and I applaud them both for trying.

   It’s not Hard Case’s usual type of book (except for the cover) although, when all is said and done, it’s very much an old fashioned paperback original in its brevity and smooth, swift, readability.