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Billy Summers (August 3, 2021)

Billy Summers will be published by Scribner on Aug. 3. And we have a killer gift for devoted readers who would like a taste of King's new tale ahead of time in the form of an excerpt.

Billy Summers concerns 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.

Per the book's publisher Scriber, Billy Summers is "part war story, part love letter to small town America and the people who live there, and it features one of the most compelling and surprising duos in King fiction, who set out to avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man. It's about love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one last shot at redemption."

Read an excerpt.



FlakeNoirNotaroNeesycat
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Comments

  • Billy Summers will be published by Scribner on Aug. 3. And we have a killer gift for devoted readers who would like a taste of King's new tale ahead of time in the form of an excerpt.

    Billy Summers concerns 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.

    Per the book's publisher Scriber, Billy Summers is "part war story, part love letter to small town America and the people who live there, and it features one of the most compelling and surprising duos in King fiction, who set out to avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man. It's about love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one last shot at redemption."

    Read an excerpt.



    ....just reserved my copy through the CDCC.......
    FlakeNoirKurbenNeesycatHedda GablerNotaro
  • ....is that the actual cover Bev?.....rather bland if so......the EW pic above is much more striking....
    FlakeNoirNotaroHedda Gabler
  • The EW cover is for the US/Scribner and the above is for the UK/Hodder & Stoughton edition
    FlakeNoirGNTLGNTNotaroHedda Gabler
  • The EW cover is for the US/Scribner and the above is for the UK/Hodder & Stoughton edition
    .....thank you sir......I'm glad to hear that.....
    FlakeNoirNotaroHedda Gabler
  • GNTLGNT said:
    The EW cover is for the US/Scribner and the above is for the UK/Hodder & Stoughton edition
    .....thank you sir......I'm glad to hear that.....
    I'm not so thrilled... 😄
    GNTLGNTKurbenNotaroHedda Gabler
  • FlakeNoir said:
    GNTLGNT said:
    The EW cover is for the US/Scribner and the above is for the UK/Hodder & Stoughton edition
    .....thank you sir......I'm glad to hear that.....
    I'm not so thrilled... 😄
    ....understood....the Hodder & Stoughton version defines "underwhelming".....
    FlakeNoirKurbenNotaroHedda Gabler
  • I guess sweden will be blessed with the Hodder&Stoughton version too.... Darn!
    FlakeNoirGNTLGNTNotaroHedda Gabler
  • A somewhat different description of the book has appeared.  I got this from the listing at my library; it says they got it from the publisher.

    "When Billy Summers was twelve years old, He shot and killed his mother's boyfriend after he kicked Billy's sister to death. At 17, he enlisted in the army. At 18, he was a sniper in Iraq and involved in the deadly battle to recapture Fallujah. For nearly twenty years, he's worked as a paid assassin. He's a good guy in a bad job, and he wants out. He takes on a very complicated, very lucrative job that he hopes will be his last. He's got a perfect new identity lined up and a scrupulously orchestrated, flawless escape plan. And then something happens that changes everything for Billy. A stranger needs rescuing, and Billy sacrifices the safety of his own perfectly devised new life to offer her protection. And then the two of them-the most compelling and surprising duo in King fiction-set out on one last mission, to rectify the injustices of one extraordinarily evil man"-- Provided by publisher.

    NotaroFlakeNoirGNTLGNTHedda Gabler
  • ....I just want the danged book already!....what, me impatient???....pshaw......
    FlakeNoirHedda GablerNotaro
  • Yeah. Steve called me and asked for my chili recipe, what my thoughts were on Harry and The Meg, and he needed the answer for 29 down on a recent NYT crossword puzzle. 

    Then he asked if i wanted to read this early. He’d send it to me.  Seriously? I said, “Bitch please. No.”
    FlakeNoirNotaroGNTLGNTdoyoulove19
  • Yeah. Steve called me and asked for my chili recipe, what my thoughts were on Harry and The Meg, and he needed the answer for 29 down on a recent NYT crossword puzzle. 

    Then he asked if i wanted to read this early. He’d send it to me.  Seriously? I said, “Bitch please. No.”
    The cheek of it. Can he not sleep these days without getting that stroke? Pshawww, time to grow up Peter Pan.
    NotaroHedda GablerKurbenGNTLGNT
  • I mean really.   Billy summers this and billy summers that.  Billy billy billy. Insufferable. 
    FlakeNoirNotaroGNTLGNT
  • My first independent cat was called Billy. 
    NotaroGNTLGNT
  • edited June 2021
     I’m sure he was way cooler than that guy Billy Summers. 
    FlakeNoirNotaroGNTLGNT
  • She.
    Yes, she.  No the spelling wasn't wrong. Just a gender whoopsie. (back in the days of assumption)
    Billy was my hero. And yes, I did sing that song, constantly. 
    NotaroGNTLGNT
  • FlakeNoir said:
    She.
    Yes, she.  No the spelling wasn't wrong. Just a gender whoopsie. (back in the days of assumption)
    Billy was my hero. And yes, I did sing that song, constantly. 
    FlakeNoir said:
    She.
    Yes, she.  No the spelling wasn't wrong. Just a gender whoopsie. (back in the days of assumption)
    Billy was my hero. And yes, I did sing that song, constantly. 
    Hey! I do not question nor judge anyone’s pronouns or name choices. 
    FlakeNoirKurbenNotaroGNTLGNT
  • FlakeNoir said:
    She.
    Yes, she.  No the spelling wasn't wrong. Just a gender whoopsie. (back in the days of assumption)
    Billy was my hero. And yes, I did sing that song, constantly. 
    FlakeNoir said:
    She.
    Yes, she.  No the spelling wasn't wrong. Just a gender whoopsie. (back in the days of assumption)
    Billy was my hero. And yes, I did sing that song, constantly. 
    Hey! I do not question nor judge anyone’s pronouns or name choices. 
    Nor did I assume. Or maybe I did? I can't remember.  I'm old.

    I always called Billy a "he". It confused the sh*t out of the vets. 😁

    Hedda GablerKurbenNotaroGNTLGNT
  • I read the excerpt of Billy Summers that appears in the paperback version of If It Bleeds.  It's only 3 pages and involves Billy meeting a client.
    GNTLGNTFlakeNoirHedda Gabler
  • ...non-binary kitty....
    FlakeNoirHedda Gabler
  • ....."Billy, Billy, Billy"....

    Best Billy Baroo GIFs  Gfycat
    FlakeNoirHedda Gabler
  • ....kudos to the kudos!.....
    Hedda GablerFlakeNoirMarsha
  • All kidding aside, i am so looking forward to this. Especially after Later. I loved Later and have really great vibes about this one. 
    FlakeNoirMarshaGNTLGNTdoyoulove19
  • I can contribute a review as well.  From Kirkus Reviews:

    The ever prolific King moves from his trademark horror into the realm of the hard-boiled noir thriller.

    “He’s not a normal person. He’s a hired assassin, and if he doesn’t think like who and what he is, he’ll never get clear.” So writes King of his title character, whom the Las Vegas mob has brought in to rub out another hired gun who’s been caught and is likely to talk. Billy, who goes by several names, is a complex man, a Marine veteran of the Iraq War who’s seen friends blown to pieces; he’s perhaps numbed by PTSD, but he’s goal-oriented. He’s also a reader—Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin figures as a MacGuffin—which sets his employer’s wheels spinning: If a reader, then why not have him pretend he’s a writer while he’s waiting for the perfect moment to make his hit? It wouldn’t be the first writer, real or imagined, King has pressed into service, and if Billy is no Jack Torrance, there’s a lovely, subtle hint of the Overlook Hotel and its spectral occupants at the end of the yarn. It’s no spoiler to say that whereas Billy carries out the hit with grim precision, things go squirrelly, complicated by his rescue of a young woman—Alice—after she’s been roofied and raped. Billy’s revenge on her behalf is less than sweet. As a memoir grows in his laptop, Billy becomes more confident as a writer: “He doesn’t know what anyone else might think, but Billy thinks it’s good,” King writes of one day’s output. “And good that it’s awful, because awful is sometimes the truth. He guesses he really is a writer now, because that’s a writer’s thought.” Billy’s art becomes life as Alice begins to take an increasingly important part in it, crisscrossing the country with him to carry out a final hit on an errant bad guy: “He flopped back on the sofa, kicked once, and fell on the floor. His days of raping children and murdering sons and God knew what else were over.” That story within a story has a nice twist, and Billy’s battered copy of Zola’s book plays a part, too.

    Murder most foul and mayhem most entertaining. Another worthy page-turner from a protean master.

    Hedda GablerBevVincentFlakeNoirMarshaGNTLGNT
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