Reviews - Billy Summers | The StoryGraph

5k reviews for:

Billy Summers

Stephen King

4.04 AVERAGE

ermadacia's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

emaciated_dragon's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

blove0312's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

<i>Reread ending July 14, 2024:</i>

I can’t believe I’ve never written a review for this and was unprepared; I’m in the tub lol.

Billy Summers. Marine sniper veteran. Also killer for hire, but only if it’s a bad person who needs ganked (Dean Winchester).

He’s been offered a shit load of money for this job, and he plans on making it his last; he knows his real identity will come out if he goes through with it. But the guy who usually hires him is acting shady. Which is mind blowing because why on earth would someone who contracts killers for hire be shady? Anyway, Billy does the job and then goes to ground, cutting ties with the people who hired him and helped orchestrate.

And then a young woman is attacked and dumped on the road in front of his hidey hole, and it’s winter and freezing and raining and sleeting. And she’s probably got alcohol poisoning. So he saves her. She doesn’t heal from attack in record time, but Billy does help her. And despite recognizing him she comes to trust him. So when it becomes clear he’s never getting the rest of his money, they go after it.

The ending of this book will never not be a gut punch. It makes me sad and angry. And despite being wildly different from a lot of what SK writes, it’s in my top 10 of his for sure. Maybe top 5 if I consider the Dark Tower series as one, lol.

There is a slightly paranormal thing, in the cabin; the painting. It would be cool if there was a follow up but I’m not real sure what else is waiting to be told.

bookfiend48's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Is this really a horror story? lol Billy Summers, hired assassin and Iraq war vet, struggles mentally with his job. Although, he's a murderer, he only murders bad men, and Joe Allen, his next victim, is not exception. Joe has murdered, but he has valuable information that the police want in order to make a plea bargain with him. That information is linked to some bigwig media boss that can bring down his empire. A mob boss hires him for the job unbeknownst to him that he has signed his own death warrant. Although Billy has to do bad things to survive, he's not a bad guy.