People seem to like Holly Gibney, the quirky introvert crime solver who, when she’s not lamenting the difficulty of social interaction or using socks filled with ball bearings as weapons, runs a detective agency. She appeared in Mr. Mercedes and its sequels (which I have not read yet) along with The Outsider.

I personally don’t enjoy Holly. I find her constant, I’m going to be strong, but it is sooooo hard…but I’m going to do it anyway for my friends act tedious.

I feel like Holly’s appearance in The Outsider was an idea King had to make writing the book easier. It seemed like he started out to make the novel a police procedural. Then he had Holly come in and supply all of the answers and solutions for the main characters.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed If It Bleeds, and the story kept me turning the pages. It had the feel of a monster-of-the-week episode of the X-Files.

THE GOOD
The Chet-Monster was a decent villain. He had sufficiently rotten motivations, and this powers were interesting. I wanted to find out more about him. Unfortunately, he is a bit shortchanged in the story. We spend more time with Holly’s senile uncle than we do with the villain.

Regardless, monsters who can blend in with humans are often entertaining. There is something spooky about the chameleon-creature. If a monster looks just like us, how are we supposed to identify it and chase it with pitchforks and torches?

The best part of the story was Holly meeting the Chet-Monster at the mall. Their conversation generated some genuine tension, and Holly came off as a character who makes things happen. Maybe that is how she appears in the books I have not read that feature her. If that is the case, it makes more sense why people like her.

THE BAD
I was struck by how much King’s writing has changed. At one point in the story, Holly describes what is happening to her as “very stressful.”

In the old days, King would not have summarized something affecting a character as “very stressful.” Old King would have shown and not told. He would have wrote something like, “when Holly considered the situation, she wanted to chew her fingernails, but she didn’t trust her stomach to keep the meal down.”

THE UGLY
The story is similar to The Outsider, in that, like the investigators in that book, Holly starts the ball rolling on solving the mystery. Then another character shows up out of nowhere and gives Holly all of the answers she needs. The character then exits and serves no more purpose.

From the point on, the Chet-Monster is easily dispatched. The biggest challenge Holly faces in the confrontation is not being late for her appointment with him.

CONCLUSION
If It Bleeds is similar to The Night Flier (main character tries to track down a supernatural killer), and The Night Flier is even referenced in the story.

In both stories, the villain get little screen time. It works better in The Night Flier because the villain is a vampire. We know about vampires, so we don’t need to spend a lot of time being told about their powers. I’m not sure what the Chet-Monster was exactly, so perhaps a bit more time could have been spent on him. At the same time, one doesn’t want to ruin the mystery.

The Night Flier > If It Bleeds > Mr. Harrigan’s Phone > The Life of Chuck.

Now I want to read The Night Flier again. That story has grown on me over the years, but the story I reread the most from Nightmares and Dreamscapes is Dolan’s Cadillac. King didn’t like Dolan’s Cadillac when he initially wrote it, and it is the story I reread the most in that book. Who can understand the many subtleties of individual taste?