Billy Summers
An epic thriller from the No. 1 bestseller
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4.4 • 251 Ratings
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- £4.99
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
Gripping
Not the usual take from SK, but a great story none the less
Oh man…
I thought I’d wait and write a review when I stopped crying but here we are. I struggled for so long to start reading Billy Summers because the synopsises were, in my eyes, underwhelming. So I didn’t really take time for it. I tried to listen to it but that didn’t work. I should have known better.
No one manages to reel me in like Mr. King. This book was brilliant. Very typical, I‘d say but in the most positive way. The protagonist, the unlikely friend. We even got another Alice. The depth of the characters. The emotional connections that are just build and portrayed so easily that you are basically a part of it.
I wish people would see that Stephen King novels aren’t just horror. Not the slasher kind anyway.
I won‘t give spoilers apart from the obvious but I can tell you, this book will take you on an emotional ride. Rollercoaster sounds too cliché but that what it is.
I apologise for the ramblings!
Loved Billy Summers
A stunning, ‘unputdownable’ book with memorable characters and a driving plot which keeps you guessing and gets you empathizing with the main protagonist and his companion .