The Colorado Kid
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| Author | Stephen King |
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| Cover artist | Glen Orbik |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Mystery, Crime |
| Publisher | Hard Case Crime |
| Released | October 2005 |
| Pages | 179 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-8439-5584-8 |
The Colorado Kid is a mystery novel written by Stephen King for the Hard Case Crime imprint, published in 2005. The book was issued in one paperback-only edition by the specialty crime and mystery publishing house. The third-person narrative concerns the investigation of the body of an unidentified man found on a tiny island off the coast of Maine. Lacking any identification or obvious clues, the case reaches nothing but repeated dead-ends. Well over a year later the man is identified, but all further important questions remain unanswered. The two-man staff of the island newspaper maintain a longstanding fascination with the case, and twenty-five years later use the mysterious tale to ply the friendship and test the investigative mettle of a postgrad intern rookie reporter.
The Colorado Kid was the first King novel published after the finale of the Dark Tower series.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
Opening in medias res as the news staff of The Weekly Islander pays for lunch at a restaurant, editor Dave Bowie and founder Vince Teague test young intern Stephanie McCann's powers of deduction regarding their tipping procedure. The friendly assessment becomes more intense as the elderly island natives and Stephanie return to the office, and she asks if the veteran reporters have "ever come across a real unexplained mystery".[1] Dave and Vinge take turns recounting a strange incident and investigation, with intermittent breaks for our narrators to crack open a fresh soda pop.
On April 24, 1980, two teenagers stumbled across a body, early in the morning. Slumped against a trash can, and carrying no identification, the body bore no clear indicators of foul play. Cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation, as a large chunk of meat was extracted from the victim's throat. Every potential clue leads to small revelations, but bigger mysteries. Though the investigation is lightly bungled, everything seems inexplicable, from how the fish-dinner stomach contents could line up with his ferry boat crossing, to the single Russian coin in his pocket.
More than a year later, thanks to a sharp-eyed rookie spotting an out-of-state cigarette tax stamp, the John Doe becomes known as The Colorado Kid. Eventually the man's identity is traced, and he is identified as James Cogan of Netherland, Colorado, everyone involved with the case is at a loss as to how the man could have gotten to a beach on a Maine island in the five hours since he had last been seen alive... or indeed, why.
In the Weekly Islander offices, the three friends, old and new, ferret out all the answers they can from the facts of the 25-year-old investigation, then speculate on what might have happened, and meditate on the nature of true mysteries. Vince and Dave tell Stephanie that while they were "the last people alive who know the whole thing", having heard the tale of The Colorado Kid, "Now there's you, Steffi."[2] The warm proclamation seems to signal the young woman's final approval by the old guard of the Islander.
[edit] Characters
- Dave Bowie - The 65-year-old managing editor of The Weekly Islander, the small-circulation newspaper servicing the island of Moose-Lookit, surrounding isles and some mainland communities.
- Stephanie McCann - A 22-year-old University of Ohio postgrad, on summer internship at the Islander. Her duties on the paper involve writing "mostly ads" [3] and the Arts 'N Things column. Though struggling with the local dialect and sedate rhythms of island life, Stephanie is growing increasingly fond of the newspaper staff, and finding they have unique, important lessons in journalism in store for her.
- Vince Teague - The 90-year-old founder of the Islander, who transformed the paper from the Weekly Shopper and Trading Post in 1948.
- The Colorado Kid - unidentified body found in 1980 on Hammock Beach, wearing gray slacks, and a white shirt. With little but a wad of meat in his mouth, and a nearly full pack of cigarettes in his pocket, there seem to be no indicators to his identity, or how he arrived on Moose-Lookit.
[edit] Locations
The action occurring within the narrative space of The Colorado Kid is confined entirely to Moose-Lookit Island, as the Islander staff takes lunch at the Gray Gull restaurant, before returning to the newspaper office.
Vince and Dave share tales that span locales ranging from neighboring Smack Island to Denver, Colorado.
[edit] Major themes
"... the number of actual stories - those with beginnings, middles and ends - are slim and none." -Vince Teague[4]
[edit] Storytelling
Unlike most of the hard-boiled detective novels that comprise and inspired the Hard Case Crime collection, The Colorado Kid offers little in the way of actual procedural detective-work, no sex, violence or action, possibly no crime, and no solution to its mystery. The story of the unsolved mystery is framed as an oral history given by Dave and Vince, and to this extent the novel is about the storytelling prowess and rhythms of these two yarn-spinners, even as genre expectations are denied and subverted.[5] Echoed in this story-within-a-story device is a lesson about the duties and talents of journalists, and by implication, all storytellers. Vince and Dave explain such concepts as need for readers to feel teased by mystery, but not frustrated by utter ambiguity[6], and the role of a storyteller in shaping the amorphous material of reality into a coherent narrative[7]. This is in line with King's increasingly frequent investigation in his writing of how writers go about the work of molding a story, notably explored in On Writing and The Dark Tower VI: The Song of Susannah.
[edit] Fortean phenomenon
Dave and Vince avail Stephanie with several other local "mysteries" - mostly unsolved murder cases and anomalous or Fortean phenomenon. These include:
- The 1927 disappearance of the crew of the Pretty Lisa, a boat which returned to shore with only one dead crew member.[8]
- The Church Picnic Poisonings, six people dead from tainted iced coffee, a mass murder with no known motive or suspects. [9]
- The 1951 "Coast Lights", bright illuminated spots in the night sky.[10]
The old men's implication is that these stories are a comforting sort of mystery, riddles with several possible solutions, unlike their continuing fascination with the more deeply unsettling Colorado Kid. All the stories have rough analogues in historical events which King lists in Danse Macabre as real-life horrors that became personal touchstones. These include the disappearance of the Roanoke, North Carolina colonists between 1587 and 1580, the People's Temple suicide/murder and popularly documented UFO phenomenon, respectively. These have manifested in King's work before, for example the mass disappearance of settlers in Derry, Maine in It.
[edit] All Beams Lead to The Dark Tower
While for the casual reader there may seem to be no explicit links to King's magnum opus Dark Tower novels, the author noted on his personal website on October 7, 2005 that an apparent research error regarding the rise of Seattle, Washington-based Starbucks Coffee may hold other implications. Wrote King: "The review of The Colorado Kid in today’s issue of today's USA Today[11] mentions that there was no Starbucks in Denver in 1980. Don’t assume that’s a mistake on my part. The constant readers of the Dark Tower series may realize that that is not necessarily a continuity error, but a clue.”[12]
This might also be a clue to the inclusion of a mention of Blockbuster in the story, which didn't exist until 1985.
[edit] Editions
The Colorado Kid was published in one paperback printing by Hard Case Crime, with no further trade editions anticipated.[13]
Twelve different hardback limited editions of The Colorado Kid will be published by PS Publishing in March 2007, with four different states and three different artists.[14]
[edit] Notes
- ^ King (2005). The Colorado Kid, 33.
- ^ King (2005). The Colorado Kid, 175.
- ^ King (2005). The Colorado Kid, 28.
- ^ King (2005). The Colorado Kid, 46.
- ^ Phipps, Keith. "Pocket-Sized Mystery". Retrieved on May 28, 2006.
- ^ King (2005). The Colorado Kid, 49.
- ^ King (2005). The Colorado Kid, 46.
- ^ King (2005). The Colorado Kid, 35.
- ^ King (2005). The Colorado Kid, 47.
- ^ King (2005). The Colorado Kid, 46.
- ^ Memmott, Carol. "King's Colorado Kid: You Decide". Retrieved on May 28, 2006.
- ^ Continuity Clarification from Stephen - scroll through archives for notice. Retrieved on May 28, 2006.
- ^ Vincent, Bev. Identifying First Editions. Retrieved on December 3, 2006.
- ^ PS Publishing's Colorado Kid page. Retrieved on June 20, 2006.
