Holly is Stephen King’s latest novel, and it is as masterfully written as you would expect from such a prolific storyteller. I was drawn in right away, and it was difficult to put the book down until it had ended. And this was despite it not being a “mystery” as such, which you typically cannot stop reading because you simply have to know the “resolution” to the mystery.

The Holly of the book’s title is Holly Gibney, who has appeared in some of King’s earlier books as an investigator, including The Outsider which was published in 2018. Set in the summer of 2021 when COVID is still raging, the plot of Holly is Gibney’s investigation into the disappearance of a young woman, who seems to have literally vanished off the face of the earth. As readers, we know exactly what has happened to her – she has been abducted by an old couple, Robert and Emily Harris, who believe that consuming parts of the human body will prolong their longevity and reduce their aging-related aches and pains. They do these cannibalistic killings at regular intervals, of approximately three years, targeting young people who would seem to have a good reason for suddenly “taking off.” They are both respected professors — now retired but still active in their fields — at a local college (in an unnamed midwestern town), and not only can they do their abductions without suspicion, they are also in a good position to scout the college town where they live for the “best” victims for the human flesh they want to consume.

Although Gibney is called on to investigate the disappearance of the latest victim, she ends up uncovering the earlier disappearances as well and tying them together to ultimately lead to the Harrises. While she does have a partner in the detective agency, he is down with a bad bout of COVID, and even though she does get some investigative help from a couple of youngsters (whom the agency sometimes uses) to crack the case, she is pretty much on her own when it comes to the actual confrontation with the Harrises. There is the clichéd “shootout” at the end of the book where the hero/heroine vanquishes the villains, and even though you know it is coming, it still makes for compelling reading.

I also greatly appreciated the fact that while the crime in Holly is horribly gruesome, there is at least no supernatural element to it as there was in The Outsider. Yes, the world is full of horror and terror, but I find it way too easy — almost a copout — to ascribe this to otherworldly forces than to human evil, which is sadly all too real.

Holly
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Scribner
Publication Date: September 2023

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Contributor: Lachmi Khemlani is a fan of the written word.