The gig goes sideways, of course – as “one last jobs” usually do in crime thrillers – and King fashions a sprawling road trip/revenge piece/character study involving mobsters, moguls, patsies, soldiers and one young woman brought to a crossroads after a sexual assault who becomes a major player in Billy’s existence. The caveat is he has to wait for his mark to be extradited back to a small Southern town from LA., so Billy has to blend into the community for several months and pretend he’s a writer working on a book as he sets up for the big day.Ī superstitious sort, Billy finds himself unwittingly forming close relationships in town (his absolute truth: “I like to fly under the radar”) and actually becoming inspired to write about the traumas from his childhood as well as his stint as a peacekeeping Marine in Fallujah, Iraq. Uncannily adept as both a shooter and an escape artist, Billy decides that his latest assignment, sniping a fellow hired gun powerful people want dead because he knows too much, will be his last.

A decorated Iraq war vet, Billy is the man to call if you need an assassination done right, though he has a strong code: Billy only puts a bullet in people who he feels deserve to be put down.

Billy summers stephen king