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Dec 22, 2011

Greg rated it:

A quick check of the personal 'most read authors' feature on goodreads tells me that this is my thirty-third Stephen King book, and it's the one that pushed King ahead of Bukowski as my most read author. There is the possibility that maybe there are a couple of duplicate ratings in there, but I'm not going to look. I'd rather have Stephen King be my most read author than Bukowski (32 Bukowski books?!? I know I really liked him for about five years, but how many times could I read the same sto More...

3 comments like (17 people liked it)

May 03, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

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 More...

3 comments like (25 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2010

Dennis D. rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2008

m.k. rated it:

There was a point in time where I thought King had lost his touch - I've always thought of him as a superb storyteller but there were a few books after the accident that just didn't hold my attention. I started one of them over a few times and finally gave up. I don't know when King's mojo returned, but I'm inclined to say that it's definitely back in The Colorado Kid. This book may not seem like a noir, not at first, but the elements are there and it's a mystery story about storytelling and mys More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2008

Chris rated it:

This is King's entry into the "Hard Case Crime" imprint, and it's an interesting addition to the genre. According to their website, they specialize in "hardboiled crime fiction," which brings to mind the likes of Mickey Spillane and Ellmore Leonard. Lots of tough guys, fast-talking women and some poor dead bastard whose murder will probably get away scot free.

So it's interesting that King should write a hardboiled crime story with, as his characters tell us over a More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2009

Jamieson rated it:

I am a new fan of the Hard Case Crime series. I stumbled upon the book “Branded Woman” by Wade Miller one day and was astonished. Hard Case Crime is bringing back all the old pulp novels of yesteryear and publishing new pulp novels by some of today’s most amazing writers. I thought, what a great idea! I had never had a chance to read an old pulp novel but now I was being given my chance!

So I was equally amazed when I head that one of my favorite authors was going to be writing a nove More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 21, 2009

Bob rated it:

Stephen King pulls a fast one with his Pulp-Mystery, The Colorado Kid, dragging the reader into the tale with an intriguing mystery that begs to be solved. A man that no one seems to know is found dead on an island off the coast of Maine, with no identification and sparse clues as to how he came to be there.

In typical King fashion, he grounds his story with interesting but believable, hometown characters that could easily be the people next door. However, I had a hard time believing More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Jim rated it:

Because I'm a fan of the Syfy series HAVEN, I have been wanting to read this short novel for quite some time, as it inspired the television series. As it turns out in this case, the inspiration plays out in the form of the show's setting in Maine and the names of the two men in charge of the small local newspaper. And that's pretty much where the inspiration ends. Still, it is an interesting story and mystery, but anyone who wants answers is going to be bitterly disappointed here, as King makes More...

0 comments like

Dec 30, 2011

Roberta rated it:

Un libro in parte osannato, in parte aspramente criticato, per lo stesso motivo: la mancanza di un finale che risolva un mistero. Il lettore rimane pertanto a bocca asciutta ma, come suggerisce King nella postfazione, "in questo caso particolare, non sono tanto interessato alla soluzione quanto al mistero in sè. Perchè è stato il mistero a farmi tornare alla storia, giorno dopo giorno." L'autore ci invita a trovare una soluzione dopo averci spiegato che l'uomo vive immerso nel mistero More...

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Dec 02, 2011

Dan rated it:

When I picked up The Colorado Kid at a used book store, I figured I was paying a couple dollars for a quick, fun afternoon read. I'd heard of the book because of the Syfy Channel original series "Haven," which claims to be based on it. I didn't think it'd wind up being one of the best books I'd read in a long time - but that's what it wound up being.

First off, The Colorado Kid is a mystery, not a horror novel. It also does not explicitly involve anything supernatural - as a m More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 14, 2011

Nancy rated it:

In the Afterword, Stephen King notes that he expects his readers will either love or hate this book. I would agree. If you are expecting a scary horror story, you will be disappointed. If on the other hand, you are interested is in a thought-provoking mystery that doesn't spoon feed the reader the answers or tie things up in a nice little package at the end, this is absolutely the book for you.

I read this book because I have been totally sucked into the television series, Haven, w More...

0 comments like

Aug 05, 2011

Adam rated it:

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0 comments like

Jul 06, 2011

Sara rated it:

This is a short, easy to understand book so it could easily be read by a juvenile. This book is not your typical Stephen King. I wanted to read it because I have fallen in love with Haven on the Syfy channel which is based on this book. I was a little nervous that it might ruin the show for me - like give me the answer to the mystery. The book was good maybe even great but I haven't really decided yet.
The book is a story told from two elderly newsreporters (at a very small newspaper in a s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 18, 2011

Anthony rated it:

"TCK" is a short book (184 pages including the author's note at the end) that King wrote in 2005 for the somewhat new publisher Hard Case Crime. It is not what people expect as a typical King book, because there's nothing of the supernatural in it. It's also not really "hard boiled crime fiction," but more of a "cozy mystery" -- and even that description doesn't work because as the author has his characters point out, real life is not like an Ellery Queen story or a More...

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Jan 02, 2011

Brie rated it:

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0 comments like

Jan 01, 2011

Yolanda rated it:

What a fascinating tale. I know some people might feel cheated after reading this intriguing mystery but I loved it. Very good book with all the trademark King, including the nature of the mystery. The interaction between the two old guys - Dave and Vince - and the young Stephanie is a great dymanic. He gives you just enough info to feel like you actually know them.

This book gets two thumbs up from me (since there are only 2, I think you get how much I liked it!) A great little read More...

0 comments like

Dec 29, 2010

Wu rated it:

WM1: "...Mi disse: 'Tu torni su quella vecchia storia come un bambino che ha perso un dente torna con la punta della lingua dove � rimasto il buco'. E io pensai tra me, s�, proprio cos�, l'hai detta giusta. E' come un buco che non posso smettere di rovistare e tormentare, per il bisogno impellente di arrivare fino in fondo."
Con questa frase, Stephen King parla al cervello e al cuore di noi post-Piazza Fontana, post-Strategia della tensione, post-Uno Bianca, post-catena di comando a B More...

0 comments like

Dec 22, 2010

Molly rated it:

For an audio book with two bookish trips to the Cities planned before the end of the holidays (one to book club and the other to a book launch dinner for my chapbook), four discs was the only criteria. And I had just finished reading On Writing, mentioning how King would make a good audio companion to me in my sojourns, but apparently this was not the one, partly because the narration is a frame tale and thus, the reader took on an elderly Maine-coast accent, which was often indecipherable and More...

0 comments like

Sep 27, 2010

Benjamin rated it:

I started The Colorado Kid by Stephen King yesterday and finished it at lunch today. I guess it goes without saying that it is a quick read. My copy is a 180 page paperback with a pretty large font so it was almost like reading a novella. Unlike most of his published work, this novel is a mystery...at least that's what the "Hard Case Crime" cover leads you to believe. I picked up my copy at the library's store a few months ago for two main reasons: 1) It's a Stephen King novel that I h More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 30, 2010

Aaron rated it:

I gave up on reading Stephen King many years ago, feeling like he had burnt out on writing interesting tales. I decided to give this novella a try because the new series Haven is based on it. I have quickly come to enjoy the series.

In the book, Stephenie McCann is interning at a paper called the Weekly Islander, which serves the tiny community of Moose-Lookit Island in Maine. One afternoon, she is sitting down with the paper's editor, David Bowie, and a senior feature writer, Vin More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 14, 2010

Kathy rated it:

The Colorado Kid… Massachusetts… Haven… 2 newspaper men – one 65, one 90 (with eastern accents – she says at 1st she doesn’t think that she can stay because she doesn’t understand them, one tells her to stick it out a little longer, and the next day, it’s like the cotton is gone from her ears, and she can understand them)… with an intern, a young woman who is finishing up her journalism… \\

And ‘school is in’… they are teaching her… we get two lessons, along with her… 1st lesson is More...

0 comments like

Aug 13, 2010

Cornerofmadness rated it:

I picked this one up because of Haven. Not sure how they turned this into that show but there’s little resemblance. This is not necessarily a bad thing. This is truthfully a novella and honestly, not a very interesting one. Mr. King was worried that people wouldn’t like it because it’s open ended. To me, that wasn’t really that bad since it’s an unsolved mystery and you know that going in.

Steffi is a young intern working in a small newspaper on Moose-Lookit Island off the coast of M More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 12, 2010

lynne rated it:

The only reason I picked this book up from the library was SyFy (ugh!) Channel's Haven that is based on this book... that and in its opening credits there's an old newspaper article with a headline about a Rev Randall Flagg, the walking dude himself, yet another link to the Dark Tower...

The book itself is nothing like the series. And this is a review of the book, so enough about the show :)

The story takes place over the course of a few hours, between two elderly men of More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2010

Jon rated it:

The Hard Case Crime series sounds like a very fun idea, and I'd like to find some more titles in the series and see how they are. This was my first Hard Case book, which might not be a good intro to the series, since it's a different kind of crime story than I was expecting from a series that claims (and this book's cover suggests) to be bringing back pulp hard-boiled crime.

Stephen King's contribution is hard-boiled in the sense that there isn't a story here at all and the point seem More...

2 comments like

May 24, 2010

Ice rated it:

The Hard Case Crime series is a wonderful idea: a mix of original and reprinted hard-boiled detective novels by some of the best writers in the field, packaged to look like lurid 1940s and 1950s thrillers. And getting Stephen King to write a new novel as part of the series was quite a coup. King is the author of record when it comes to fiction set in America in recent decades, and here he is with a noir detective story. Alas, what he actually turned in was a cozy, a sort of Jan Karon take on the More...

0 comments like

Aug 27, 2009

Drebbles rated it:

Steffi McCann came from Cincinnati, Ohio to Moose-Lookit Island in Maine to do an internship on the newspaper "The Weekly Islander". Her elderly bosses at the newspaper, Vince Teague and Dave Bowie, have plenty to teach her, including the fact that, unlike newspaper stories, real life doesn't always have stories that come neatly wrapped in packages with a beginning, middle, and end. To illustrate that point, they tell her the story of a body found on the beach, the body of the man they More...

1 comment like

Jul 31, 2011

Jason rated it:

A clever short, one I read in under four hours to give you some idea of its length, The Colorado Kid is less about the ending than the journey. King treats us to a day in the life of three characters and allows the reader to see the bonding between two elderly gentlemen and a young woman who is fulfilling an internship at their small newspaper. The story itself is one that relies on the reader to have patience and the ability to see what isn't there all the while making sense of what we are bein More...

0 comments like

Feb 12, 2011

Melissa rated it:

The Colorado Kid is a bait-and-switch of a book. It's billed as a hard-boiled crime novel, but what unfolds is really a character study of unsolved mysteries. Dave Bowie and Vince Teague, elderly editors of The Weekly Islander, spend a few hours relating one of the island's greatest unsolved crimes to their young intern Stephanie McCann.

It's a meandering, ponderous tale that raises far more questions than it answers. I skimmed a few Goodreads reviews before beginning, so I knew going More...

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Sep 12, 2009

Matt rated it:

I was supposed to be watching recorded episodes of Project Runway Australia with my girlfriend tonight, but I started reading The Colorado Kid during a break and found it hard to put down. I forcibly held off reading the last two chapters in order to score some brownie points, but in the end I got to finish the book (she went to bed).

It is definitely a love it or hate it story. I'm a little surprised I liked it as much as I did since I've never really been heavily into the crime/myst More...

0 comments like

Jul 17, 2010

Jennifer rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)