The Colorado Kid (Hard Case Crime)

After a summer of interning at The Weekly Islander, a small-town paper in Maine, a young woman coaxes one heck of an unsolved mystery out of the two stodgy, stalwart members of the newspaper’s writing staff. That afternoon, as she navigates the twists and turns of the death of the Colorado Kid, she comes to a decision about her own future, and whether to dedicate herself to the big stories or the nitty-gritty work of proper journalism.

The Colorado Kid is one of the flagship titles in the Hard Case Crime series, and it’s a curious inclusion to be sure. After all, there’s less of a pulp or noir aspect to the storytelling than you’d expect, and the crime, such as it is, is long concluded. It’s not so much being investigated as discussed after the fact. That being said, it is a hell of a satisfying read to have the mystery slowly explored by the aged narrators.

King managed to take a sad, yet very ordinary, occurrence — the death of a nobody on the beach — and craft a haunting, enthralling story around it, leaving some of the circumstances to your imagination. And whether you enjoyed the journey or not — King himself admits he expects the story to be polarizing — there’s no denying that The Colorado Kid is a mystery that sticks with you, demanding your attention and your theorizing long after you’ve finished the book.