In Stephen King's 1987 novel Misery, Annie Wilkes isn't happy with the ending of Paul Sheldon's latest book, so she forces him to write another one, chopping off various body parts to keep him on track along the way. Almost 30 years later, Morris Bellamy, the pasty-skinned, red-lipped villain of King's new novel, Finders Keepers, takes a less nuanced approach when confronting his own literary hero. Only pages in, John Rothstein, the novelist dubbed "America's reclusive genius" by Time magazine, has been shot in the head.
Morris has come to Rothstein's remote New Hampshire house with a pair of thugs, ostensibly to rob the elderly author. But, really, he's heard rumours of the dozens of notebooks Rothstein has filled with his writing in the decades since he retired from public life entirely, and is desperate to find a new ending for Rothstein's creation, Jimmy Gold. Jimmy is "an American icon of despair in a land of plenty", according to Time; he's the star of Rothstein's era-defining "Runner" trilogy, and coiner of the slogan that adorns the T-shirts of students across the US: "Shit don't mean shit."
"You created one of the greatest characters in American literature, then shit on him ... a man who could do that doesn't deserve to live," says Morris, before fleeing the scene, notebooks and cash and (somewhat briefly, sadly for them) accomplices in tow. Hyperventilating with anticipation at the prospect of reading Jimmy's story, but aware of the forces of law on his trail, he buries his treasure in an old chest, only to end up with a life sentence for another crime.
More than 30 years later, the chest is discovered by Pete Saubers, a boy whose family is in dire financial straits after his father fell victim to the villain of King's previous thriller, Mr Mercedes. Pete finds a clever use for the money, and revels, in solitary bliss, in Rothstein's "nasty, funny, and sometimes wildly moving prose".
King flits between the two stories, Pete and Morris', past and present, slowly building up to what has always been coming: Morris' release, still "batshit-crazy" on the subjects of Jimmy Gold and John Rothstein, and his reclaiming of what he believes is his.
