Book Review – Never Flinch by Stephen King

I’ve been reading Stephen King novels since middle school. Some I love. Some scared the hell out of me. One was so gory that teenage me had to put it down for an hour before I picked it back up and finished it. And then there is the occasional meh. A book I can barely finish and if there is any author that I’m unwilling to put a DNF down in Goodreads, it’s a Stephen King novel. Never Flinch almost became the first.

This book follows Holly Gibney, a character who I’ve grown to love as King keeps writing about her, and her new policewoman friend Izzy as a serial killer becomes active in their area. The reason the killer is going on his bloody crusade of killing innocent people is because a man was falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit and later died in prison, but only after the person who framed him came forward with the truth. I won’t give away why this killer has taken on this crusade in case you decided to give it a read because the reveal is actually one of the few good things about the novel and I don’t want to spoil it. Izzy enlists Holly to help her investigate and Holly enlists Jerome to help when she is hired as a bodyguard for a feminist public speaker.

This is where the book veers into too many storylines. Public speaker Kate hires Holly because she has a stalker who has already attacked her assistant. This stalker is a religious zealot who is on a crusade from a church that wants Kate assassinated for her pro-choice and feminist beliefs. The stalker also like to cross dress as his dead sister which confuses the issue. Kate is one of those loud, stubbornly bring-it-on women that you both respect and loathe her arrogance at the same time.

Also on this novel’s agenda is Jerome’s sister Barbara who has had a successful book of poems published. A famous soul singer, Sister Bessie, has taken a liking to her poetry and asks to meet Barbara while she prepares for her big comeback show in town. Barbara and Sister Bessie become close friends as the singer is also enlisted to sing the National Anthem at a cops vs. firemen baseball game. The night of the game becomes the night that all three of these storylines converge so that the serial killer and the stalker are both trying to kill Kate as well as her assistant and Barbara. AND Sister Bessie. Because why not?

I’m just going to say it honestly, Stephen. Why were all three of these stories in one book? Each of the serial killer and stalker narratives are fine on their own and could have been their own novel separately. I probably would have enjoyed both of those. Or maybe release a collection of short stories about Holly’s investigations if you’ve got so many ideas. I’d read the hell out of that. But to combine these two and then throw in the whole Sister Bessie narrative AND a baseball game was… a lot.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this book is terrible. It’s mid. More of a mystery novel than the horror and fantasy narratives that King is known for. It wants to be political and tell the tale of a feminist getting silenced by religion. It wants to show a female cop trying to succeed in a male dominated field. It also wants to have themes of how addiction and mental illness affect who we become. Throw in a young poet meeting her favorite singer and becoming her backup dancer for no apparent reason, and this novel becomes a convoluted mess. As soon as I get into one story, I’m thrown into another. The back and forth, the constant switching of points of view between Holly, Bessie, the stalker, the assistant, Kate, the serial killer, and Jerome had a ricochet effect I’m sure King didn’t intend.

Or maybe he did. Maybe that was the point. To have a novel that so closely resembles our chaotic times that it just feels jarring. The conclusion of this novel where all three of these stories converge is chaos. Not good The Stand chaos where multiple characters converge at the end for a satisfying ending. This was just too many pigs fighting under a blanket. None have enough oxygen or room to breathe.

I can usually finish off a novel in a week or two depending on the novel and how busy I am, but Never Flinch took me a couple of months to finish because I had to force myself to stay interested. I stayed for Holly, though, because she’s a great character with a kind heart and a mind that spins in interesting ways. If you haven’t read this novel, be aware that it’s okay but not King’s best. Not by a long shot.

3 out of 5 stars and I’m being kind with those three.