I wanted a quick audiobook to knock out on my work commute. Obama's Promised Land is proving to be not knock-out-able, so I turned to Stephen King's Later. Not quite 7 hours long, I ended up listening while knitting, doing dishes, during my commute, etc. It was really good!
Jamie Conklin is a little kid with special powers (typical SK so far). His power is the ability to see dead people. WAIT! No, come back. It's not the Sixth Sense! This is actually good! As a little kiddo, he sees his dead neighbor whose husband is crying on Jamie's mom's shoulder. Jamie chats with his dead neighbor, learns that she put her rings in the closet for no real reason, and is pretty frank with Jamie that his hand turkey drawing sucks. Apparently dead people can only tell the truth. So. Ouch, dead neighbor lady.
Jamie's mom somewhat believes him, especially when she helps their neighbor find the wedding rings in the closet, but she insists he not speak to anyone else about his "talent". His mom, Tia, a literary agent, hooks up with an NYPD detective, Liz, until they have a falling out. Liz isn't your stellar detective. True, she has to fight the good ol' boys club but being a dirty cop isn't the way to do that, LIZ.
When one of Tia's clients drops dead before finishing a novel, she drags Jamie to the dead guy's house in hopes of finding him to get the plot of his last novel. A bit shady and desperate, but, as you'll see, Tia is desperate. Liz tags along and gets an earful of Jamie's abilities.
Later, we get into some crazy scary shit for Jamie, all because of Liz. When you think it's bad, it gets worse. Towards the end is where I told everyone to leave me alone because I have to finish this book because, damn. Everything slid downhill. But WAIT! Once the scary is over, we still get that last "Oh shit" moment where I actually knocked out a loud WTF? and startled some people.
Crazy book, crazy creepy, crazy good.
