'' NEVER FLINCH '' : BOOK REVIEW

'' NEVER FLINCH '' BY STEPHEN KING ,..... stalkers and serial killers.

WHEN I received what appeared to be an email from a New York Times editor asking whether I was interested in reviewing the new Stephen King novel, it crossed my mind that it was a phishing scam. That Stephen King? Right, fella.

I verified the sender, double-checked the email address, pasted an included link into a browser instead of clicking on it directly [ nice try, scammer].

Several Google searches later and redundant confirmation later, I cautiously agreed to take on the assignment, still certain the book would never show up as promised.

When it did, I signed for it wondering : Had I been silly to be so suspicious? Or duly vigilant? As it turned out, '' Never Flinch,'' Stephen King's propulsive follow-up to his 2023 thriller, '' Holly,'' courts a similar question : Is the world today fine, or is it, in fact, on fire?

In the early pages of the novel, the brilliant but troubled private investigator Holly Gibney, who appears in six of King's books, is just trying to enjoy some fish tacos with another familiar face, Detective Izzy Jaynes.

Holly and Izzy are pals - a refreshing and distinctly feminine inversion of the usual animosity depicted between P.I.s and law enforcement - and Izzy needs help with a case.

Someone has emailed the Buckeye City Police Department pledging to murder 

'' 13 innocents and 1 guilty '' to avenge a wrongly convicted man who was killed in prison, '' Does that make sense to you? '' the message reads.

'' It does to me, and that is enough.'' Well, it may not make much sense, but the sentiment - this insistence that the invention of truth is an inalienable right - sounds painfully familiar, and it's not just the aspiring serial killers in our lives who are expressing it either.

Before long, the mysterious emailer, who, like Holly, is plagued by the intrusive narrative of an abusive dead parent, starts making good on the threats.

The murders are swift. Unceremonious. Random. Executed with a chilling detachment that alerts you to your own infernal vulnerability.

This novel calls attention to the dangers of turning your convictions into accessories.

The World Students Society thanks Ainslie Hogarth, - the author of '' Mothering, '' '' The Lonely,'' '' The Boy Meets Girl Massacre [ Annotated ]'' and, most recently. '' Normal Women.'' Her next novel will be published in 2026.