Holly: Stephen King Lets His Unusual Female PI Shine

Holly by Stephen King was published in 2023.

Our Sleuth: Holly Gibney, 55, has finally found her calling as a partner in the private detective agency called Finders Keepers. Holly was introduced as a minor character in some of King’s earlier books. Here, she’s the protagonist.

The Setting: We’re in an old Midwestern town, home of Bell College of Arts and Sciences, with action shifting between 2012 and 2021.

The Premise: Holly is hired to find a missing woman, a case she’s taken largely to avoid thinking about her complicated relationship with her mother, who’s recently died from COVID after refusing to get vaccinated. As she begins investigating, she learns that others have gone missing from the same area.

My Take: King is known for complicated and macabre stories, but he’s also a master at creating fully-realized and relatable characters. In Holly, we’re shown an imperfect protagonist still recovering from a life dominated by her psychologically unfit mother. And while her mother dies before the book opens, she manages to deliver one last devastating blow to the daughter whose life she’s tried so hard to control. Holly perseveres, both in her personal life and in the investigation, pulling together enough threads to discover a pattern that the police could not. Ultimately, it’s Holly and a small band of friends who take down two very unlikely killers.

Opening Lines:

October 17, 2012

It’s an old city and no longer in very good shape, nor is the lake beside which it has been built, but there are parts of it that are still pretty nice. Longtime residents would probably agree that the nicest section is Sugar Heights, and the nicest street running through it is Ridge Road, which makes a gentle downhill curve from Bell College of Arts and Sciences to Deerfield Park, two miles below. On its way, Ridge Road passes many fine houses, some of which belong to college faculty and some to the city’s more successful businesspeople — doctors, lawyers, bankers, and top-of-the-pyramid business executives. Most of these homes are Victorians, with impeccable paintjobs, bow windows, and lots of gingerbread trim.

Heads Up: No spoilers but I will admit that parts of this were difficult to read. It’s Stephen King so you know there will be some dark details. There’s also racism, which gets its just desserts.

Of Note: King is the author of the acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, in which he tells “everything I know about how to write fiction.”