I picked up this book, not because I'm a Stephen King fan (although I am), but because it was part of the new Hard Case Crime division of Dorchester Publishing. I'll admit, the variety of authors they've collected to write for them is extensive, and THE COLORADO KID just happened to be the first one in the Hard Case group to make it to the top of my to-be-read pile.

I understand, after reading THE COLORADO KID, why so many people on here posted negative reviews. I understand, because just like the main characters in the story told me, a mystery with no resolution plain and simply pisses people off. People want a happy conclustion to a problem--whether it be why 9/11 happened, why oil prices are so high, why a young woman in Wisconsin was murdered, or how a man from Colorado went to work one morning and ended up dead on a little island off the coast of Maine only hours later.

Not KNOWING, not having Mr. King spell it out for us, angered many a reader of this book. Should it have? Maybe. But I actually felt like there WAS a resolution to this story--that being that not everything in life has such a tidy ending as we want our stories to have. Of all the people who end up dead in the US every year, how many do you think go unsolved as to cause of death, or in the case of murder, capturing a perpetrator? Life--this roller-coaster ride that we get onto daily and hang on to since our very lives depend on it--is not black and white, and it sure as heck doesn't offer us up tidy conclusions at the end of every day.

THE COLORADO KID is, quite simply, a character study of not knowing. We can get the facts, we can extrapolate what we believe happened based on those facts, but in the end, it's all a mystery.

Kudos to Mr. King for taking an idea, running with it, and showing that he just doesn't give a flying fig if we get it or not. This book left me with questions, yes, and I actually thank him for that. A book that makes you think and question will always be worth more than a book that doesn't.

Don't read this expecting horror because it's not. It's not even structured like your typical novella, with the entire story simply a dialog between three people.

I think King is great with premise - setting an eerie stage and invoking intense curiosity; however, he stumbles and falls with this one. Instead of his typical altruistic main character's sacrificial last act of life, this offers no resolution. Well, the story-within-the-story doesn't. And that's what draws us to the story in the first place. Not recommended for anyone, not even King fans.

Not you typical SK story, but still a good read. Not a long book by any means, but the story keeps your attention.

Okay - this is a powerful book. Everything King does leads up to the ending which makes perfect sense given the plot - but it still drove me crazy. King is a genius, this books shows it - but my frustration level is 10 on a scale of 10. WHY THAT ISLAND?????

As the author says himself, you will either love or hate this book. Not much room for in-between. Personally, I loved it. Vintage King dialogue and New England characters.

Excellent, but short book, a real departure for King, highly recommended.

From the fist page you want to know the dead mans secret.

Great characters and a great storyline. For a Stephen King fan, what more can be expected and this one does not disappoint.

The worst SK I've read. He says in the back that you'll either love or hate it, well I hated it. Just not what I expected from SK. No resolution, just a mystery. I guess it's supposed to say something about the nature of life, but when I read a book I want it to have an ending.

I am an avid King fan, this one was very disappointing. My King books are like gold and I do not give them up to ANYONE, but had no problem putting this one back in the system. The plot was boring and didn't go anywhere. If you are a King fan, don't bother w/this. I can't say if this is a good book for the genre, but if it is, then what an "anti climatic" genre.

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This was one of King's early works and frankly, based on this book, I wouldn't have continued to read him if I had started with this one! Probably can tell that I didn't care for this other than the fact that it shows that King did improve. Low character development and it ends with an anti-climax.

This wasn't like King at all. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. I'd recomend it more for Elmore Leanord fans. It's different. I got it has a gift so yea. Not the best.

I didn't like this book at all. I knew that it was not a typical SK book, however it just didn't do it for me.

Not typical Stephen King - if there is such a thing. But it is an interesting and quick read. Story of a 25 yr old murder in a small coastal Maine town told by a couple of great local oldtimers to a young female reporter. Though I was frustrated by the ending, Stephen King is a good story-teller. The character development of these two old gentlemen is excellent-I would like to sit down for coffee with them-and it's a short book so I didn't feel cheated.

The other Stephen King. Interesting story. A stranger comes to town and then disappears. Keeps your interest start to finish.

WITH AN ALL- NEW INVESTIGATION INTO THE UNKNOWN

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no
identification on the body.Only the dogged work of a pair of local
newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues,
and it's more than a year before the man is identified.

And thats just the beginning of the mystery,Bacause the more they
learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death,
the less they understand.Was it an impossible crime? Or something
stranger still....???

Brand new. Never read.

Fresh out of journalism school, Stephanie McCann is an intern at a weekly newspaper in an obscure corner off the coast of Maine. She is writing homey features and reporting on trivial stories, but she rather enjoys it. Then a big-city reporter comes to town to gather stories about "unsolved mysteries." The paper's owner and the managing editor send him away unsatisfied, and then tell Stephanie the only real unsolved mystery on the island. The banter between the two old men provides all kinds of local color, but it also means the pace of the storytelling is glacial. It takes most of chapter one to explain why they filch the cash the big-city reporter left to pay for a meal. We're in chapter five before they start telling the story that gives the book its title. Years earlier, two high school sweethearts found a dead body on the beach. There was no identification, and only a few items found with the body gave any hope of telling where he was from. It isn't until too many chapters later, after much meandering, that the old men tell Stephanie (and us) how they found out the man was from Colorado, which led to the identification of the body. Nor do we actually care, since none of the characters do. They're only telling the story in order to explain that it's not a story at all-a conclusion with which readers will heartily agree.

Different for Stephen King.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Pure entertainment from the master of horror turned mystery pulp fiction writer. Great job, Mr. King!

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