dramastef's Full Review: Stephen King - The Colorado Kid
After his retirement (also known as the end of his publishing obligations), Stephen King wrote a short book for a new line of crime novels called Hard Case Crime, which, according to their website, is supposed to provide the best in hardboiled crime fiction, ranging from lost noir masterpieces to new novels by today’s most powerful writers, featuring stunning original cover art in the grand pulp style. After reading just one of their books, and one by an author I usually enjoy, I’ll grant them the stunning original cover art but nothing else.
Sadly, Stephen King’s The Colorado Kid is neither hardboiled crime fiction nor a lost noir masterpiece. I guess it is a new novel. Or at least it was when it was first published in 2005. Crime fiction hasn’t been my usual genre of choice, but from the few I’ve read, I was under the impression that often times there is a crime described, and then, more often than not, that crime is then solved. I don’t expect much. I don’t particularly need to be fed the answers on a silver platter. But some answers in one form or another… well, I thought that was basically the norm in crime fiction. Someone tell me if I was wrong.
Two elderly gentlemen, Vince Teague and David Bowie work for a small island newspaper off the coast of Maine. Stephanie McCann is interning for them during the course of the story. The three have just finished having lunch with a Boston Globe reporter about odds and ends and unexplained “mysteries” of the island. Many times, they use the phrase “school is in session” and take an opportunity to teach Stephanie a trick of journalism.
When Stephanie realizes that they held one story back from the Globe reporter, she pushes them, and they launch into the story of The Colorado Kid. Twenty some years ago, a body was found on the beach. It appeared that he had choked to death, and he had no coat on, and very little in his pockets other than a Russian coin and a Colorado-stamped pack of cigarettes with just one smoke missing.
Neither storyteller had been able to let go of the mystery of The Colorado Kid, and so, knowing their time on earth was most likely almost up, they passed that mystery on to Stephanie, their new intern.
Yeah. That’s just about it. Minus a few Stephen Kingesque details. No answers. None. Not one. And to make things worse, the entire story of the “mystery”, which takes up about 90% of the book, is told in narrative between the old men. So the whole third person flashbacks are told in first person, with plenty of journalism lessons thrown in for Steph, and the looks of pride that pass between the mentors when she gets light bulbs of insight.
Taking place on a Maine island, where you’re either an islander, or “from away,” and seeing as the entire story is told by the two men, there were ridiculous amounts of phonetic dialect, detracting that much from an already almost unreadable story. I was very, very disappointed in The Colorado Kid, and unfortunately for Hard Crime Case books, it has turned me off of the rest of the stories, cool covers notwithstanding.
Final Thoughts: Don’t read it if you’re a fan of Stephen King. It’s not like his other stuff. Don’t read it if you’re a fan of crime fiction. It’s not a good crime novel. Don’t read it if you think the cool chick on the cover speaks of good things within the pages. It just isn’t the case. Why would you read it? If you enjoy reading New Englander accents talking about silly, boring things that have no resolution.
FIRST PUBLICATION ANYWHERE! On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There’s no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of...More at Barnes & Noble.com
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