Billy Summers
Billy Summers is a crime novel written by American author Stephen King, published by Scribner on August 3, 2021. Plot. Billy Summers is a hitman contemplating retirement when he is approached by a familiar mobster, Nick Majarian. Majarian offers him a final job that will set Summers up for a more than comfortable retirement. The target, wanted hitman Joel Allen, is facing a possible death penalty for shooting two men during a poker game, one fatally. Fearing that Allen would incriminate his previous employers in an attempt to lessen his sentence, Majarian seeks to tie up a loose  end on behalf of wealthy media mogul, Roger Klerke. Klerke, unbeknownst to Summers, had employed Allen as a hitman in a successful attempt to kill his son, Patrick, who upon finding out that he was not set to inherit his father's company, began to blackmail his father through evidence he had acquired of his abuse of young girls. Once Allen had completed the hit on Patrick, he found out about the content of the blackmail and continued to blackmail Roger. During the course of the job, Billy becomes gradually more suspicious of Majarian with his concerns being confirmed when , after successfully killing Allen, Majarian refuses to pay him and it is revealed that there has been a bounty placed on Billy's head. While hiding out, Billy is witness to a young woman being dumped from a van after being sexually assaulted. Alice Maxwell is 21, and after being rescued by Billy joins him as he seeks to locate Nick. During his search for Nick, Billy finds Alice's attackers and punishes them. Upon locating Nick, Billy kills and severely injures several of Nick's workers. Namely, Billy injures and permanently handicaps a man named Frank whose mother, Marge , also works for Nick. Once Nick reveals Klerke's identity, location, and role in the hit, Billy and Alice work to lure Klerke into a meeting under the guise that Alice is an underaged girl. Once Klerke arrives, Alice shoots him. As Alice and Billy leave the scene, Billy is shot by Marge who is then killed by Billy. It appears that Billy survives, although it is later revealed that he died as a result of the shooting and the remainder of the story is written from Alice's perspective as she considers what Billy would have done if he  had survived. Background. Stephen King first mentioned the novel in an NPR interview in April 2020, where he discussed having to change the story from taking place in 2020 to 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Later that month, in a live streamed conversation with John Grisham, King again mentioned it, saying it was a crime novel about a hired assassin. "Entertainment Weekly" officially announced "Billy Summers" on January 28, 2021, with a release date of August 3, 2021. The announcement also included a short excerpt. TV series adaptation. In February 2022, it was reported that the novel will be  adapted into a limited television series with J. J. Abrams, King, Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz as executive producers. Reception. The novel debuted at number one on "The New York Times" fiction best-seller list for the week ending August 7, 2021. In a rave review, John Dugdale of "The Sunday Times" wrote, "Disciplined but adventurous, equally good at action scenes and in-depth psychology, King shows with this novel that, at 73, he's a writer back at the top of his game." Neil McRobert of "The Guardian" called it King's "best book in years," praising his "own  brand of muscular, heightened realism." McRobert wrote that the "odd balance with the sunlit, languorous first half" of the book succeeded "largely because King is so good at character and making us care through incidental details."