The Colorado Kid (Hard Case Crime, 013-I)

I’m Stephen King’s second biggest fan. Annie Wilkes holds that honor, sort of. That being said, I confess I have had “The Colorado Kid” both in paperback and on my Kindle for a long time. Usually, I cannot resist a new King book and plunge in as soon as I grab hold of one. It wasn’t until I started writing my own crime mysteries that I took a second look at this little book. A good mystery lays out the clues and leads the reader around different theories, allowing said reader to draw a few conclusions of his own. Starting off with the likable team of journalists who make up a small-town Maine newspaper, King sets the stage for the story of the ‘Colorado Kid’. After Vince Teague and Dave Bowie share some stories of unsolved mysteries of the area with a Boston Globe feature writer, they return to their office with intern Stephanie McCann. It’s there that the tale of the twenty-five-year mystery is told. Vince and Dave talk about other Maine and New England mysteries until Stephanie presses them to reveal the story they wouldn’t share with the outsider. Despite the fact that Stephanie came to the Weekly Islander from Ohio, she had gained the respect of the older men during her three months in the small town. From the discovery of the dead body by a couple of high school students running near Hammock Beach in early spring, through the clues set out in the story, the story is compelling. The evidence is right there in front of them but putting it all together is a challenge before DNA, computers, and the internet. Was the man a murder victim? Had he had a heart attack? Did he somehow commit suicide? Or was it some kind of accident? But the most important question is, who is the man? King’s brilliance is his ability to write dialogue that rings true. It’s like standing behind and listening to the town constable and the local doctor discuss the body and what might have occurred. Each character seems to hold a piece of the story. But it’s only the persistence of “a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics” that the identity of the kid comes to light. While the story doesn’t end there, it does add to the mystery of what the body of the dead man was doing on a beach in Maine. I leave it to the reader to discover how the story ends… or doesn’t end. A word of warning, not all mysteries are solved. This book is not about answers but about man’s natural curiosity and need for solid endings. In “The Colorado Kid” King brings to mind the Rolling Stones lyrics, “You can’t always get what you want.” But sometimes you get what you need.

I have been trying to find this book for the longest time. I believe there is NOT a book Mr. Stephen King has written that wasn’t GREAT! This book makes you think of all the possibilities. And why not? When was the last time you read a book that made you question other possible theories? Thank you ONCE AGAIN Mr. Stephen King for getting my mind thinking outside of the book!!

By hard boiled crime novel standards, The Colorado Kid, set on a tourist island off the Maine coast, is more of a boiled lobster.

Some of the meaner critics on Amazon called it “toothless.” I would just say that Stephen King is doing some genre shifting here and this crime novel might even attract readers of old English cozy mysteries, assuming it would have enough action for them.

It is basically a story told by two aged editors, Vince Teague, 90, and Dave Bowie, 65, who own and operate the Weekly Islander, a small community newspaper.

The mystery story is told laconically by these two retirement home escapees, in Down Maine accents and colloquialisms. Their audience is Stephanie McCann, a college student from the Midwest, who is interning at the paper. She is struggling with Down Maine as a Second Language, where they say ayuh for yes and you don’t want to be thought of as an ijit (idiot).

Warning to would be authors: The Colorado Kid is a don’t-try-this-at-home book.

Telling a mystery in mostly backstory is NOT something a creative writing teacher is going to recommend or even tolerate. You have to be named Stephen King to get away with this. And even then critics and fans were on his case about it.

But I digress, as happens often in the telling of this mystery, which I enjoyed because I identified with the two newsprint geezers and envied the fact that they were still working in a business that is slowly being strangled by social media.

What I really got out of the book was a Journalism 101 lesson.

Warming up to tell the actual mystery, old Vince tells Stephanie a journalism trade secret.

“I’m going to tell you a secret almost every newspaper man and woman who’s been at it awhile knows: in real life, the number of actual stories— those with beginnings, middles, and ends— are slim and none. But if you can give your readers just one unknown thing (two at the very outside), and then kick in … a mustabeen, your reader will tell himself a story. Amazin, ain’t it?”

I never heard this bit of newspaper wisdom before.

Oh, I knew that real life stories, unlike TV dramas, don’t have a beginning, middle and end.

So I knew news stories don’t always have satisfactory endings.

What I didn’t know was “… if you can give your readers just one unknown thing (two at the very outside), and then kick in … a mustabeen, your reader will tell himself a story. Amazin, ain’t it?”

Obviously, the unknown in any mystery and even many real-life homicides is whodunnit.

But I never knew that was a good way to craft a crime story until I learned it from Stephen King.

That’s good to know.

I would say that Stephen King has earned his wily old codger wings with the publication of this Hard Case Crime novel. The Colorado Kid is unlike anything King has done before. For starters, this King fan didn't even know about this little red book until after it was published. It doesn't even look like a Stephen King novel, with its nour-ish cover and provocative tease line. It didn't read like Stephen King, either - not the first chapter anyway. My first impressions were in no way encouraging. When King starts telling the story of the mystery, though, I was intrigued - so much so that I didn't put the book down until I had finished it. I can't say I'm a big fan of the ending, but I don't have a problem with it either. King does an eloquent job of explaining what he has done here in the Afterword. There, he admits that readers will most likely either love or hate the book - and I think he's right, at least to a degree. As intrigued as I was by the story, I can't say I love it, just because of that ending. Those who criticize The Colorado Kid, though, have legitimate reasons for doing so.

The Colorado Kid is the initial moniker given to a middle-aged man who turned up dead on the beach of Moose-Lookit Island (off the Maine coast) back in 1980 - just another John Doe to the local cops. He would never have been identified without the help of the two old men running The Weekly Islander; they did more investigating than anyone with a badge ever did. Over the courser of a quarter of a century, they've returned time and again to the mysterious death of this stranger on their little island. They've turned up a number of facts about the dead man, every one of which only seemed to deepen and complicate the whole picture of who this man was and how he came to die there on a beach far away from his home in Colorado.

In these pages, the two old newspaper men tell the story of The Colorado Kid to Stephanie, a young intern there at The Weekly Islander. It's a rite of passage in a way, showing the young lady she has been fully accepted into the local island family. It lets the two vets test their young charge while also providing her with important insights into the twin arts of journalism and storytelling. I found myself just as intrigued as Stephanie with the increasingly confusing depth of the mystery; like her, I wanted a solution to clear up all of the confusing facts. And there we have the proverbial rub.

Most likely, hard-boiled crime story enthusiasts will have more problems than Stephen King fans with The Colorado Kid - although a right many of King's most loyal subjects may well balk at what the master has done in this odd endeavor off the beaten path. As long as I was flipping the pages, though, I was fully engrossed in the story - it's not vintage Stephen King storytelling, but it's pretty darn good. The trouble only comes at the end, as it's a bit of a let-down. King's Afterword, though, puts everything into perspective and changes your viewpoint of the entire story - it's the saving grace that allowed this loyal King fan to really appreciate The Colorado Kid for what it is.

The Colorado Kid a short(ish) piece, perhaps for SK a novella; too long for a short story at just under 200 pages according to amazon, but I read it on the Kindle which doesn't do page numbers, so who's to know?

It's not a horror story. It's a mystery story. But it's not a "detective" story, there's no detective involved, and there's no resolution - no scene in the library of the country house (or courtroom) where some brilliant Sherlock rolls out the clues and what they mean and finalizes the whole thing by wheeling on the culprit and shrieking "But it was YOU...."

The only available spoiler is that in The Colorado Kid you will not only not find out whodunit, you won't find out what there was to be done, nor why.

King very cleverly sets up a frame story around a completely "told" mystery plot - we never meet ANY of the characters involved in the actual mystery - that whole story is "told" by two old downeast geezers, to their young midwestern associate. The true cleverness King displays is in getting us fascinated by the "mystery" that the old farts relate to the young woman, as a means of grabbing & holding our interest in the three "real time" characters, whom he portrays very cleanly & economically.

King's handling of "voice" is brilliant, especially in his handling of downeast dialect. Dialect, as most writers will tell you, is very dangerous territory (in fact I think SK mentions it himself in "On Writing") - an attempt to render any extended passage in accurate representation of any regional or ethnic accent practically dooms the dialog thus attempted. But King manages to suggest to the reader how these folks sound, then judiciously (and sparingly) reinforces it with occasional phonetic renderings, and the magic is done - every time Vince and Dave speak, I hear the down Maine twang as clearly (cle-ah-ly) as if I was listening to the geezers myself, somewhere up (down?) the coast, perhaps in the vicinity of Wiscasset.

I enjoyed The Colorado Kid immensely, and I recommend it for anyone who likes a tale well told, but who doesn't require resolutions to their mysteries (like real life).

This book "The Colorado Kid" intrigued me when I first read of how the SyFy show Haven, one of my All Time Favorite Shows, had come to be. And like Stephen King said It is not the show "Haven" and now I can see why from actually reading the book. All I got out of it was that this book was JUST the starting focal point for the show, imo, and thats ok. And just like how it is with some things, sometimes the Unknown needs to be a Mystery that just needs to be left alone to get them sparks of imagination and curiosity going in our brain. Its what I call part of Being Alive. Easy Read, 8 out of 10. ThumbsUP.

I have had this book for years and saving it for a time that I needed a good dependable read. King, my all time favorite author ( or GOAT if you prefer) rarely disappoints so now was the time. Not to long ago I read an enjoyed "LATER" so I figured " The Colorado Kid" would be a safe bet. Turns out that I did enjoy the story; I liked the two older news guys and the young apprentice. I enjoyed the mystery given and the steps taken to solve the mystery. I enjoyed the way the mystery was laid out to the young intern. And I turned the page and there was the authors acknowledgements??? I read the acknowledgement and Mr. Kings argument for no ending and I don't agree with his reasoning. I know that he has been criticized throughout his career for his endings and while I didn't always like his endings it is his stories and he should end them anyway he wants. I always felt like his endings were realistic and glad that he dosen't take the easy way out and end with all being roses and unicorns. But in this case I feel the story is incomplete so I deducted the fourth star that the story or mystery deserves. Still it is his story and he should end it his way.