Holly

Stephen King

This reading group guide for Holly includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

Holly, one of Stephen King’s most enduringly compelling characters, now co-director of the Finders Keepers detective agency, knows she should turn down Penny Dahl’s request for help finding her missing daughter. Holly has just lost her own mother, and Covid-19 is on the rampage, taking her partner Pete into quarantine and out of commission. But something about Bonnie Dahl’s disappearance seems like more than just a girl who ran away, especially when other missing persons cases from the past show disturbingly similar patterns.

Emily and Rodney Harris are retired professors who live in a posh neighborhood in a midwestern town. Now in their eighties, they are struggling with their health, and their attempts to cure themselves through diet have become more desperate—and more sinister. A gruesome secret in their basement is the key to unlocking Holly’s case, but can she see through their unassuming facade and avoid becoming a victim herself?

Topics and Questions for Discussion

1. Early in the book, readers learn who the perpetrators are and why they are committing their crimes. Why does King take this approach? What does it add to the narrative?

2. The first time we meet Holly, she’s logging off from the Zoom funeral for her mother. We later learn more about the difficult relationship Holly had with Charlotte. How does the loss of her mother color Holly’s interactions with Penny, whose own daughter is missing?

3. Holly prides herself on being a detective, and she is a good one. However, in this novel she learns that her mother kept some stunning secrets from her. Does her mother’s deceit, and her own years-long, unknowing acceptance of it, shake Holly’s confidence?

4. The story takes place a year after the breakout of Covid-19. Masks, gloves, and vaccines are brought up throughout the novel and many of the characters are heavily affected by the virus. Why do you think King set the novel during the pandemic?

5. One of the reasons the Harrises get away with their crimes for so long is that they are married octogenarians and semi-retired academics, seemingly the last people on earth who would be capable of a string of kidnappings. What part does profiling play in this book?

6. Emily and Rodney show time and time again that their actions come from a place of love for each other. King includes moments between the two that are tender and caring, mostly in response to their respective ailments. They love each other, but other than that, do they have any humanity?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. Challenge your book club to go back and read the other books Holly is featured in (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch, The Outsider, and If It Bleeds) to better understand who Holly is as a character.

2. Take a field trip to a park and read excerpts from the book that revolve around the setting. Discuss what the characters must have felt just before their disappearance. For further immersion, plan your visit for after dark.