The Colorado Kid (Hard Case Crime, 013-I) Paperback – May 7, 2019

I am an avid reader of Stephen King books and The Colorado Kid is one of the few books of his that I did not own.

I would say that Stephen King has earned his wily old codger wings with the publication of this Hard Case Crime novel. The Colorado Kid is unlike anything King has done before. For starters, this King fan didn't even know about this little red book until after it was published. It doesn't even look like a Stephen King novel, with its nour-ish cover and provocative tease line. It didn't read like Stephen King, either - not the first chapter anyway. My first impressions were in no way encouraging. When King starts telling the story of the mystery, though, I was intrigued - so much so that I didn't put the book down until I had finished it. I can't say I'm a big fan of the ending, but I don't have a problem with it either. King does an eloquent job of explaining what he has done here in the Afterword. There, he admits that readers will most likely either love or hate the book - and I think he's right, at least to a degree. As intrigued as I was by the story, I can't say I love it, just because of that ending. Those who criticize The Colorado Kid, though, have legitimate reasons for doing so.The Colorado Kid is the initial moniker given to a middle-aged man who turned up dead on the beach of Moose-Lookit Island (off the Maine coast) back in 1980 - just another John Doe to the local cops. He would never have been identified without the help of the two old men running The Weekly Islander; they did more investigating than anyone with a badge ever did. Over the courser of a quarter of a century, they've returned time and again to the mysterious death of this stranger on their little island. They've turned up a number of facts about the dead man, every one of which only seemed to deepen and complicate the whole picture of who this man was and how he came to die there on a beach far away from his home in Colorado.In these pages, the two old newspaper men tell the story of The Colorado Kid to Stephanie, a young intern there at The Weekly Islander. It's a rite of passage in a way, showing the young lady she has been fully accepted into the local island family. It lets the two vets test their young charge while also providing her with important insights into the twin arts of journalism and storytelling. I found myself just as intrigued as Stephanie with the increasingly confusing depth of the mystery; like her, I wanted a solution to clear up all of the confusing facts. And there we have the proverbial rub.Most likely, hard-boiled crime story enthusiasts will have more problems than Stephen King fans with The Colorado Kid - although a right many of King's most loyal subjects may well balk at what the master has done in this odd endeavor off the beaten path. As long as I was flipping the pages, though, I was fully engrossed in the story - it's not vintage Stephen King storytelling, but it's pretty darn good. The trouble only comes at the end, as it's a bit of a let-down. King's Afterword, though, puts everything into perspective and changes your viewpoint of the entire story - it's the saving grace that allowed this loyal King fan to really appreciate The Colorado Kid for what it is.

Arrived in great condition

This is a good story. It's open ended though so if you don't like that just don't read it so you don't have to write a "I didn't like it because it didn't tell me what happened to..." type review. It ends, it just doesn't tell you what you probably want to know so just know that right away so you can make your choice before turning the first page.That aside, this is an interesting story. It's really not long so you can read it pretty quick. It's under 200 pages and considering "It" was over 1000 this is pretty much a short story. This tells the tale of a body on a beach that has a huge mystery surrounding it. The man that was found is known as "The Colorado Kid". 25 years later a writer is being told the tale by two of the locals who happen to own their own very small newspaper. This is the story you are reading and the one I'm not going to tell you so that you have to read the book to find out anything more. Okay, sure you could just go read other reviews that tell you a whole lot more about what happens but you won't learn more from me! It's best to go in knowing as little as possible I think then learning more as you go.If you can handle a mystery that isn't wrapped up in a neat little bow when it ends then you just may like this story because that is exactly what this is.

With descriptions of place, time and human possibilities Stephen King brings the reader into the feeling of being in Maine the time of the small newspaper, and a human mystery. Superb dialogue and puzzling clues make this a fascinating book.

By hard boiled crime novel standards, The Colorado Kid, set on a tourist island off the Maine coast, is more of a boiled lobster.Some of the meaner critics on Amazon called it “toothless.” I would just say that Stephen King is doing some genre shifting here and this crime novel might even attract readers of old English cozy mysteries, assuming it would have enough action for them.It is basically a story told by two aged editors, Vince Teague, 90, and Dave Bowie, 65, who own and operate the Weekly Islander, a small community newspaper.The mystery story is told laconically by these two retirement home escapees, in Down Maine accents and colloquialisms. Their audience is Stephanie McCann, a college student from the Midwest, who is interning at the paper. She is struggling with Down Maine as a Second Language, where they say ayuh for yes and you don’t want to be thought of as an ijit (idiot).Warning to would be authors: The Colorado Kid is a don’t-try-this-at-home book.Telling a mystery in mostly backstory is NOT something a creative writing teacher is going to recommend or even tolerate. You have to be named Stephen King to get away with this. And even then critics and fans were on his case about it.But I digress, as happens often in the telling of this mystery, which I enjoyed because I identified with the two newsprint geezers and envied the fact that they were still working in a business that is slowly being strangled by social media.What I really got out of the book was a Journalism 101 lesson.Warming up to tell the actual mystery, old Vince tells Stephanie a journalism trade secret.“I’m going to tell you a secret almost every newspaper man and woman who’s been at it awhile knows: in real life, the number of actual stories— those with beginnings, middles, and ends— are slim and none. But if you can give your readers just one unknown thing (two at the very outside), and then kick in … a mustabeen, your reader will tell himself a story. Amazin, ain’t it?”I never heard this bit of newspaper wisdom before.Oh, I knew that real life stories, unlike TV dramas, don’t have a beginning, middle and end.So I knew news stories don’t always have satisfactory endings.What I didn’t know was “… if you can give your readers just one unknown thing (two at the very outside), and then kick in … a mustabeen, your reader will tell himself a story. Amazin, ain’t it?”Obviously, the unknown in any mystery and even many real-life homicides is whodunnit.But I never knew that was a good way to craft a crime story until I learned it from Stephen King.That’s good to know.