Bolder Colorado

Stephen King has been called a hack writer, because he writes and publishes a book at least once a year. Now, he has published a love it or hate it short novel, The Colorado Kid that might just help add fuel to the "hack writer" fire. King, himself, writes in the after word that he expects no middle ground for his latest work. Some of his long-time fans might be glad that he decided to keep it under 200 pages this time. Even though the retail price is $5.99, I bought my copy at Wal-Mart for under $4 and I can say I got my money's worth.

While The Colorado Kid isn't one of his best like The Stand, The Green Mile, and The Dark Tower series, it's a lot better than The Tommyknockers, a bloated 747 sci-fi/horror work about alien abduction in a small Maine town. King doesn't hit a homerun this time. The Colorado Kid is a bunt, if nothing more, a single.

For the first time in nine years, King's latest work is published in paperback first. And like The Green Mile, it is published on a gimmick. However, this time, it doesn't work well. Hard Case Crime books is the publisher this time in a throw back to pulp crime novels of the past.

The plot involves a college intern named Stephanie McCann as she inquires to the mysterious death of a visitor to a Maine island, Moose-Lookit, twenty-five years earlier. She is told the story by two older man Vince Teague and David Bowie (nice name) from the local newspaper, The Weekly Islander.

In the end Stephanie is left with more questions than answers. Since this is an unsolved mystery, some critics may have thought that Vince or David knew something they've never told. But they know just as much as anyone else involved in the case knows. After finishing page 178, you might want to toss the book into the garbage.

However, I liked this little book for what it's worth. King knows how to write three dimensional characters rather than caricatures. He also knows more about small town life than he probably would like to admit. As a journalist, I like the fact that Vince and David have been working for the newspaper a very long time without any advancement to a bigger paper. Small town newspapers are usually for lifers. You get stuck there and spend a decade or two writing and wonder where all the time went.

The Colorado Kid is about the people of Moose-Lookit having to deal with a terrible episode in the past they wished hadn't happened. Every community has that one skeleton in the closet that it can't shake off. On Moose-Lookit, it's the unexplained and unsolved death of a man who may or may not have been from Colorado.

For what its worth, King's latest opus is worth reading if you like his work. However, if you're a first timer or just got introuduced to him a few years ago, you might want to check out some of his former work before deciding to read this.

It's good. It just isn't all that great.