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The Colorado Kid (Hard Case Crime (Paperback)) | 
| Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing
Category: Book
Used (46) from £0.32
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 111434
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 184
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0843955848
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780843955842
ASIN: 0843955848
Publication Date: October 4, 2005
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Hard case crime? August 12, 2008
This story is criminal.....it is criminal how anyone was able to publish this piece of 12th rate fiction. When I buy a crime novel I expect crime!!!! not two old guys telling a story about a crime which only happened in their minds.
It is written in recent Stephen King style....junk.
If you collect S.K. novels buy this BUT do not read it everyone else avoid it like the plague.....
 The magic of Steve-o May 22, 2008
There is a reason why King is the world's best-selling author and this little book shows why. The story could have been told in half a page - indeed the story itself, which was inspired by a newspaper article, could be published in maybe one column of newsprint. Yet Stephen King teases it out into the gossamer threads of a delightful read - and that is his magic: He can tell us any story, use any subject matter, be it bogeymen from outer space or last week's shopping list, and make us sit up and take notice. Be warned though, if you are looking for monsters in this book, or a clear-cut ending: there are none. If you admire King's writing, you don't need me to tell you to read this.
 No, Mr King, this story does need an ending October 1, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In the afterword Stephen King muses that readers of this book will either love or hate this book, with no middle ground. He is probably right and I, for one, fall into the latter category.
As most of the previous reviewers have suggested the big problem with Colorado Kid is that there is no ending. In the aforementioned afterword Stephen King explains this away by stating that this is unimportant because it is the mystery, not the solution to the mystery that counts. I'm sorry, Mr King, but that is pretentious hogwash. Would you buy a house with no roof or a car with no doors? I certainly wouldn't, but we are expected to shell out our hard earned cash on what is basically an unfinished book.
Ending aside, I wasn't too keen on the rest of it either. I thought that the method in which the story was told - two old journalists on a backwater newspaper relating the events following the discovery on a beach to a trainee - very hackneyed. The characters too are stereotypical - are old newspapermen on small newspapers really always wise and knowing?
I'm sure that most of Stephen Kings army of fans will read this book, but I suspect that most will wish they hadn't bothered.
swindle July 3, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am a Steve fan but even if King announces in the postface to the book that "it is about the mystery not its solution", this is still in my view some swindle on his part. The whole (thankfully short) book is about setting up some mystery about a dead man found on a beach, and then it just ends, probably to leave the reader complete his/her own ending. Anybody can do that, no one would get away with it except a big name like King, and this is no value for money. Don't buy this book, it is a waste of time, not even fun reading.
 True Pulp Fiction or not? But does it matter? August 31, 2006
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
In every book and movie of one of his books, Stephen King's strength is more within his characters than the storyline. The storylines, however, are usually meaningful and touch the heart, and he has a way of tapping into obvious themes which we kick ourselves, (and probably other authors do, too), for not thinking about such a simple idea ourselves. Much as The Colarado Kid is a great and fascinating read where King has drawn beautiful characters yet again, this story, even though well worth reading, is not truly of the pulp fiction genre. Publishers, Hard Case Crime, were obviously thrilled when Stephen King sent them the manuscript, but had it been written by any other author I feel it would have been rejected for being way-off-target. However, it heightened HCC's profile and is a feather in their cap as King simply sent them the script out of the blue. For the true King fan this is a must, and it's an interesting read even if you're just a casual reader of this genre, but the pulp fictionalised gung-ho characteristics of bullets bouncing off the main character are missing, but Stephen King is a law unto himself and does whatever he wishes with his audience loving it. The characters, flawless, the story, not truly pulp fiction in the strictest sense.
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