Book Club Monday: Billy Summers

Author: Stephen King Title: Billy Summers Publisher: Scribner Date Published: 08/03/2021

Read Dates: 12/01/2025- 12/07/2025
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was my book club pick for December.

Billy Summers is a single POV thriller/crime novel. It is the story of a hired gun looking to retire. He agrees to a final job for a big payout but has his suspicions that it might not be a good idea. The book tells Billy’s experiences leading up to the job and after, and is interspersed with chapters of a memoir Billy is writing that gives the backstory on his childhood and time in the military.

While Stephen King is known for horror, this is definitely not that. I enjoyed it for the most part, but found some choices odd. King makes several references to COVID, how the characters have no idea that in six months everything will change, etc… but the story ends before COVID so it’s unrelated and just feels weird to insert it. Otherwise I enjoyed it, even though some scenes were very intense (payback for Alice!) mostly it was a good thriller.

Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?

How about everything...