I love this character. I have followed her from Mr Mercedes all the way through to her latest outing. I think she is a great character. Long may she flourish.

Two dangerous people on different missions and private investigator Holly Gibney is pulled in to both their orbits. Holly’s dealt with many types of strange in her life, but can even she understand the true motives of someone killing innocent people to take revenge on the guilty or targeting someone for having different beliefs? For someone who until recent years rarely revisits main characters, Holly Gibney is a stand out exception in the work of Stephen King. Featuring in now six novels and a novella is a feat unheard of for a Stephen King character, exceeding even the previous reappearances of Castle Rock sheriffs. The last King full-length novel, eponymously titled Holly, was the first where this felt like a good thing to me. It was the novel where it really felt like I could see why she was making recurring appearances for the first time. That makes this book, Never Flinch, the first one where I was really looking forward to seeing Holly again. She’s come a long way from her introduction in Mr Mercedes, both as a character and someone able to carry a story along. The reappearances of her friends, brother and sister Jerome and Barbara, were also welcome and the exchanges between the characters, while relatively few because of the way the plot developed, provide a lovely warm feeling of their relationship and the relationship the reader has with them. There’s an argument to be made that the ending for one of the plot lines feels a little bit rushed and not quite up to the potential built up. But the joy of a King story has never been the ending, but the characters and plot along the way. And this is no different. A fantastic read which I was picking up or listening to in every spare second of the day - including the two floor lift ride at work - just so I could answer my curiosity for that perfect question for readers. What happens next?

I preordered this title as an audio book and wasn’t disappointed. I’ve enjoyed the series of tales featuring Holly and Barbara and a couple of other characters appear in this tale. It’s essentially two stories; one following a women’s rights campaigner who’s under threat and the other involving the murder of jurors who found an innocent man guilty. He was subsequently killed in prison and someone feels that a price should be paid for the loss of an innocent life. It’s probably not King’s greatest work and in author note at the end, he explains the difficulties he faced during the writing. That said, it’s still gripping and the pace builds and builds, particularly towards the end where Holly is literally up against the ticking clock as the body count rises. The two threads at first seem quite disparate, but bit by bit, they weave together and all in all, it’s everything I wanted from a bit of King escapist fiction.

Really fast paced until chapter 4 then found it's tempo. Not one of his best books, but still lovely to catch up with Holly. I feel there was too many story lines. The one with Barbara being one.

After being given a copy of the 'Four Past Midnight' compilation some 35 years ago, I have read everything that Stephen King has written. And to varying degrees, I've thoroughly enjoyed them all. His foray into crime thrillers in recent years has been particularly enjoyable and here we again meet the recurring characters of private detective Holly Gibney and her helpers, brother and sister Jerome and Barbara Robinson. This story absolutely races along, with three interwoven stories all meeting for a tremendously thrilling ending. His characters, as always, are completely three dimensional and, again as always, King completely draws you into his world. I just wish he'd shelve his obsession with Covid safety though. It's over Stephen!