Billy Summers
The No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller
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4.4 • 226 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The perfect crime doesn't exist. The perfect getaway . . . that's another story.
Billy Summers is a killer for hire. He's among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet who can blend into any neighbourhood and disappear after the shot is taken. But he'll only agree to a contract if the target is a truly bad guy.
Now Billy wants out. But first he's offered one final job - an offer which is just too big to refuse.
As the days count down to the hit, Billy senses something is wrong. He doesn't yet know just how wrong, or about the woman who will help him try to set things right.
Part thriller, part war story, part lyrical portrait of small-town America, Billy Summers is about a good man in a bad job, with one last shot at redemption
'A compelling and engrossing read' - Sunday Express
'Adventurously shape-shifting yet always disciplined . . . dazzling' - The Sunday Times
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
His name may be synonymous with horror, but Stephen King proves he’s just as much of a genius at hardboiled crime with this gripping thriller. Billy is a highly decorated veteran of the Iraq War—and a hit man. He’s staked out in a small town waiting for the right moment to snipe one final target, earning him a huge payday so he can officially retire. But when his chance to pull the trigger finally comes, things don’t go as planned, instantly spiralling the highly skilled killer’s entire world out of control. Part gritty thriller and part fascinating character study, this novel riveted us. Billy even has subtle shades of The Shining’s Jack Torrance if you’re looking for them (particularly as Billy works on his own novel, which slowly becomes more of a dark memoir). The action is front and centre in this thrill ride, and so is revenge. Every pulse-pounding beat of this story adds not just tension but depth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ex-Army sniper turned hit man Billy Summers, the protagonist of this tripwire-taut thriller from MWA Grand Master King (Later), who views himself as "a garbageman with a gun," decides his 18th assassination will be his last. But he rightly smells something fishy in the promised $2 million payout and runs rogue when things go south with his employers. Matters get complicated when a rape victim whose life he saves becomes his confidante and a participant in his plans to get even. King meticulously lays out the details of Billy's trade, his Houdini-style escapes, and his act to look simpler than he is, but the novel's main strength is a story within a story: as he preps for months in the small town "east of the Mississippi and just south of the Mason-Dixon Line" where the hit will happen, Billy, masquerading as a novelist, writes his lightly fictionalized autobiography, which grows more candid as it inches closer to current events and illustrates a line he remembers from a Tim O'Brien interview that fiction "was the way to the truth." This is another outstanding outing from a writer who consistently delivers more than his readers expect.
Customer Reviews
Just couldn’t put it down.
Loved this through from start to finish. Such excellent characters that the author lets you see inside of. Beautifully paced thriller.
One of his greatest
I’ve been reading King since I was a teenager in the 80’s. And I can’t praise this book enough.
It’s thrilling and as usual a “ can’t put down” but what’s so different from his usual works is it’s passion for writing itself and the world’s that takes the reader into. I’d have to say his best work in years. Thank you Mr King for the suspense the depth of characters whom I am already missing and your insights on the struggles and beauty of the process of writing.
A return to the King
I devoured all of his novels in the eighties and nineties. Then moved off to explore other authors. “Billy Summers”drew me back and did not disappoint. A compelling read, not in the horror genre, that deserves the return of readers who may not have read Stephen King recently. Utterly brilliant story telling with intimate connection to characters. The only disappointment was a feeling at the end that I was reading actual news reports! This read made me pre-order Fairy Tale!