Holly

Stephen King

Sep 2023 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

#1 New York Times Bestseller * New York Times Notable Book * NPR Best Book of the Year

Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and resourceful characters, returns in this chilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town.

“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.” —BILL HODGES

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.

“I could never let Holly Gibney go. She was supposed to be a walk-on character in Mr. Mercedes and she just kind of stole the book and stole my heart. Holly is all her.” —STEPHEN KING

Ratings and reviews

some of Stephen King's worst pathetic dribble. keep your politics out of your fiction King. No one wants to have this shoved down their throat. I read your books to escape life, not to wind back up in it. your books were best when they drew people in, not away. You had a fanbase and you are losing it. Enough is enough. keep this up and I'll stop buying your books. you were good before your accident. that crash must've messed your head up. oh, and this Trump bashing stuff, is really getting old fast. No One Cares.

This isn't a book as much as it is the political ramblings of an out of touch, CNN viewing boomer with the worst case of TDS I've ever seen. It's also a love letter to covid tyranny which must've been super easy on Stephen King given that he's rich and has had a work from home job for his entire adult life. Every time I was starting to enjoy the book a little bit he'd bring up Trump and vaccines and how anyone who didn't take a vax basically has the brain power of a mentally deficient squirrel. What an embarrassment.

It breaks my heart to see my favorite author so lost to propaganda and TDS. I've already unfollowed him on social media, but now I have to stop reading his books? When will these people understand that we don't care what your politics are?! Not to mention all the embarrassingly outdated info about covid and vaccines... in the FIRST 50 pages of the book! It's all so old and tired, and sadly, predictable in our current times.

About the author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.