Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: Billy Summers

Top positive review

Great read

Reviewed in Australia on 28 September 2021

This is the first King book I’ve read and at first I didn’t think I was going to be gripped by it. However, as the tale of the hit man with a moral code unfolds it’s impossible not to be drawn in. He’s performed the hit by about 30%: what could the rest of the story be about? Well, life is complicated by rescuing a rape victim and by discovering the back story of why the hit was necessary. This involves a nefarious media mogul who’s somewhat reminiscent of Rupert Murdoch (who will not be appreciating the portrayal). In between times, he finds his cover as an aspiring author isn’t. Because in writing about his early life and his time as a marine in Iraq he becomes a real author - of a story that can never be published. The story has two endings: the fake one finished by the girl he saves and the real, sadder one. Good stuff, and there’s only one minor bit of supernaturalness to it. That’s what put me off reading other books by King.

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Craig

Like a bad Jack Reacher novel

Reviewed in Australia on 18 August 2021

As I am a long-time fan of Stephen King, Billy Summers was a massive disappointment. I persisted to the end hoping it would get better; sadly, it didn't.
It starts out with promise -- a slightly mysterious job for a hired killer who senses something might be amiss but just can't help doing this one last job for a big payday; the classic Stephen King trope of lead character who is also a writer (will this angle lead to some macabre twist (like in The Dark Half) or stunning insight?); the small-town Americana observations.
Once the first act is complete the story takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of a new character to play the female lead for the book's second act, but this felt random and forced - very unlike King. From there Billy Summers devolves to read like a Jack Reacher/Lee Child novel, and not a very good one I'm afraid to say.
The brief throwback reference in the second part of this book to one of King's classic early novels was bizarre and completely out of kilter with the rest of the story. Sorry to disappoint fans, but this is far from Stephen King's best work.

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From Australia

Great read

Reviewed in Australia on 28 September 2021

Reviewed in Australia on 26 August 2021

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Stephen King brings Billy into your sights and the story rolls, holding you in there, without pause, till the very end.

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‘Feelings are like breathing, they come in and go out.’

Reviewed in Australia on 22 March 2022

Meet Billy Summers. He is a killer for hire, but only if the target is truly bad. Billy is one of the best snipers in the world: a decorated veteran of the Iraq war, and extremely good at vanishing once the job is done. It is time for Billy to move on, and he knows it. But Billy is approached to do one last job, and the payout would set him up for life.

The job will take a while. And while Billy is waiting, he’s living in the suburbs of Red Bluff working in an office near the courthouse as a writer. It’s a great cover. We learn about Billy’s past through his writing and experience his present as he sets up for the hit.

And that is all I am going to say because this is definitely a book to read without spoilers.

This is one of the best Stephen King books I have read in years. I picked it up and could not put it down.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Helpful

Never judge a person by what you see

Reviewed in Australia on 8 September 2021

This is a slower paced book than we usually get with a Stephen King story, however I feel that if it had been any faster paced, it would not have worked as well as it did.

I also liked that there wasn't any pnr/spn aspects to this story, it is all human nature and all the good and the bad that it can be.

Billy Summers shows that you should not judge a person on your assumptions. He is a master at what he does, and should never been underestimated.

There is such a range of good guys, bad guys and I don't know who to trust guys, that Mr King kept us on our feet the whole way through.

And that ending- say whaaaat?!? I was definitely not expecting that - well played Mr King, well played.

I would like more books like this in the future.

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Jim Bowen

A decent to good read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 November 2021

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This book is about an assassin with a backstory that allows us to like him (meth-head mother, absent father (seriously I don’t remember him being mentioned at all), murdered sibling, abusive maternal boyfriends). He gets an offer for one last job. When that goes sideways, he decides to “have words with” the people who ordered the hit.

There are a few plot-lines that don’t make sense (for example, how’s he gone from a $70,000 a job guy to $2,000,000 for the final job? I can’t work out if it’s too small or too big a jump, but it still feels… doubtful(?) and while I’m at it, how does the woman at the denouement find him for the final shootout?).

In addition, his sidekick feels a little too… perfect. It’s almost as if King wrote to central casting, gave them the situation, and this what he got back. If that scenario did ever occur in real life, I’d have complained. I’d have wanted my money back, I’d have wanted someone smudgier.

If you can ignore the issues I raised, or they won’t bother you I’d recommend this book. It’s not Dickens or Tolstoy, but it’s an easy breezy read, that the vast majority will enjoy, if you’d like this sort of read.

One person found this helpful

Andy F

Good to see another decent length book from King

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 October 2021

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Being a Stephen King Fan, I always have his latest books in the wish lists or ready for pre-order, happily they generally coincide with my dad's birthday (another King fan).

After getting stitched up a couple of years back paying full price for King's book 'Elevation' a novella I read in about an hour. I've made a point of checking the page count before buying, thankfully the last couple have been well worth the money.

I won't go into the story for the sake of spoilers, only saying that when I thought I was nearing the logical end of the book, I was actually only about 40% though (this is on a kindle, not an actual book), and another part of the story starts to unfold.

in summary, I was very pleased with the purchase this book, whilst it lacks the supernatural elements I prefer in a King book, it was a very engaging story, and kept me entetained for some time.

One person found this helpful

Martin P

Reminder from a master that real horror lies not in vampires & boogeymen but in the evil that men do

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 September 2021

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One side-effect of buying e-books (which a lack of bookshelf space requires me to do these days) rather than their physical equivalent is that you have no sense of the heft of the book. King is no stranger to writing very long novels, but has turned in a few shorter efforts (Elevation, Joyland and Later being recent examples). And I thought this was going to be another, as it very quickly seemed to be coming to a conclusion, ramping up for a classic King denouement. But then I noticed, courtesy of my Kindle's progress bar, that I was only about 30% of the way through. Clearly there was much more to come.

Fortunately for all concerned, this was not a problem, as Billy Summers barrels along like the very best of King's work - I found it hard to put down, and often lost great chunks of time as I kept telling myself, "Just one more chapter."

I don't have to go into great detail about the plot - the blurb covers that nicely. What I will add is that this book, like so many in the King canon, is also about writing - our hero's cover story is that he is an aspiring novelist whose agent has procured office space for him to work on his book. Office space that just happens to overlook the courthouse steps on which Billy is to shoot a bad man. Since he has time to kill, and to maintain his cover, Billy starts to write, a work of fiction that quickly turn to autobiography. And so we have two stories here - one is the tale of a sniper-for-hire's last job, the other is his backstory. It is hard to say which is most compelling, especially when you learn that Billy's story is of abusive parents, a care home, the army, the Iraq War... and all manner of horrors.

That's an interesting phrase, actually. For whilst horror is the genre that made King the colossal global success that he is, I would say there's a strong case to be made that his best work, certainly in recent years, is not horror per se. This is a straight up-and-down suspenseful thriller - there's no genre horror here. Instead, King deals in the many horrors of reality - of bad men that do unspeakable things, of killers, of unjust wars. It will slip under the radar because of its context, but Billy's account of clearing houses in Fallujah is an intense as you might imagine.

Of course, King being King, he can't help himself, in that towards the end of the book action moves to Colorado, and a location that overlooks the site of a hotel that had burnt down, and that was rumoured to be haunted. And there's a painting of some topiary animals, in which the animals appear to move... In some ways this is a nice self-referential touch, and places the book in the wider King universe, but is completely unnecessary and doesn't serve the story at all. And if it's just for Constant Readers like me to have an "a-ha" moment, well, it's too blunt for that. But this is a minor quibble.

What is a slightly bigger quibble, for this reviewer at least, is a leap of faith that King asks the reader to take shortly after the 30% mark that I mentioned earlier. It concerns the coming together of the "compelling and surprising duo" mentioned in the blurb; although King is pretty frank about the unlikelihood of what happens, and uses all the considerable storytelling tricks at his disposal to explain it, the circumstances of the coming together still didn't feel plausible to me. I can't explain more without plot spoilers, but I can say this credibility gap will cost the book a star from my review, and that's a shame because other than that I really enjoyed it, became totally engrossed and, as I've said already, found it hard to put down.

A thriller that ticks all the boxes

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 August 2021

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My regular readers (assuming I have such a thing) will know I’m a huge fan of the author and have been reading him since my teens. A new release is always a highlight of my year. His last couple of books have verged more on the supernatural and he returns to thrillers with Billy Summers. The premise is not exactly new, a hitman takes on a job that smells fishy but the money is too much to resist and he’ll be able to give up the life forever. Things do not pan out as expected and Billy is betrayed on all sides and determined to find and punish everyone responsible. I loved the relationship between Alice and Billy, they have amazing chemistry. I was riveted from start to finish.

One person found this helpful

An excellent crime novel, one of his best recent books

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 August 2021

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Billy Summers is a hitman, one who only kills bad people. In his last job, he is hired to kill another hitman, one who is in prison awaiting extradition for murder and who knows too much about the people who have hired him. Billy has be nice to a new town and pretend to be someone else while waiting for the day he has to take his shot. But things don't go smoothly after the job. Then a twist of fate brings a stranger into his life and things change for them both.

This is one of Stephen King's crime novels, rather than horror. I've read most of his books over the last thirty plus years and this is definitely up there with his best work. I finished it in about three days. If you like Stephen King or enjoy crime novels then I'd highly recommend this.

savagegardener

Good ride After A Rocky Start.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 December 2021

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This is the first Stephen King novel I almost gave up on in the first couple of chapters, but I'm glad I stuck with it as it eventually got into its stride and turned out to be an enjoyable read. I can't say it will go down as one of my favourites from him, after a lifetime of being one of his 'constant readers', hence only four stars instead of five. I think other writers do this genre a lot better, but this is by no means a poor effort, and I would recommend it highly.

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