Billy Summer by Stephen King

 

Billy Summers is the best, a real pro at assassination.  But he's tired of the game and is ready to retire.  When he hears about the biggest job he's been asked to do and what the payout would be, he decides this will be his last job.  This one isn't an in and out.  It will require him to spend several months in one location, under an alias and making those he meets think that he is a writer so that he can have the office in a skyscraper that has a window that oversees the courthouse.  An underground figure is going to go on trial and expose the organization and the organization doesn't like that.

After the job, Billy is hiding out in an apartment no one knows he has, waiting for the heat to die down.  He is about to leave when one night he hears something going on outside.  He looks out and sees three guys dumping a girl out of a van and driving off.  The girl isn't moving and he goes to see what's going on.  She is half-conscious and it's clear she is drunk or high and probably been assaulted as her clothes are just barely there.  Not wanting police attention to the area, he takes her into his apartment.

Thus starts a partnership.  Alice is a freshman at a local college and picked the wrong guy to date.  Billy helps her get revenge and then the two are on the road.  Alice discovers what Billy does and is willing to help him.  They visit Billy's arranger who has gone to his Colorado cabin after the hit and he and Alice form a father/daughter relationship.  But she goes with Billy when he goes after the man who sold him out on the last job.

I really love the later Stephen King books.  He has moved away from gore for gore's sake and is writing instead about ordinary people caught in unusual situations.  The reader will emphasize with Billy even if he is a criminal and revel in the relationship that he and Alice form.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.