Just Finished Reading Finders Keepers by Stephen King

Stephen King's latest novel Finders Keepers, which I just finished reading, is the middle book in his ongoing series that began with Mr. Mercedes.  In it, a celebrated writer by the name of John Rothstein (apparently a fictional amalgam of John Updike and Philip Roth) has gone into self-imposed isolation from the world for many years as he continues his writing...but without publishing any of his works.  This proves to be problematic as one of his most renown works, the "Runner" trilogy, and which features the young American anti-hero character of Jimmy Gold, seems to trail off in the final book with a marked sense of anti-climax...as if there were more to come in the series.  But if Rothstein had written any more books in the Runner series, he's not publishing.  Enter Morris Bellamy, a deeply disturbed man who has identified so closely with the Jimmy Gold character and is so disappointed at the ending of the third book that he feels compelled to find any new books for himself...eliciting an unwelcome encounter with Rothstein at his retreat.  I'll spare you the details except to say that the story does get around to connecting itself with the previous book, Mr. Mercedes...and that its unlikely trio of protagonists...Bill Hodges, Jerome Robinson, and Holly Gibney...once again team up to set things straight.  In the midst of their endeavors, King inserts some hints as to what direction the final book in this trilogy will take...

I enjoyed Finders Keepers and found it to be better than Mr. Mercedes...unusual for the second book in a trilogy.  But what I got the most out of it was the John Rothstein character...and the real-life writers of John Updike and Philip Roth.  So much that I'm now starting to read Exit Ghost, one of Roth's more recent books, and am working to get hold of the first book in Updike's celebrated Rabbit series.  Roth, by the way, is known probably the most for his stories Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy's Complaint...

So now I await Stephen King's final installment in this series.  In the process, he joins George R.R. Martin, Daniel Abraham and Brandon Sanderson in the "club" of authors whose ongoing series I've caught up with as I patiently anticipate what's up next...