Billy Summers

Billy Summers is a 2021 novel by the prolific American novelist Stephen King, known primarily for genre novels including horror stories and thrillers. Billy Summers is a thriller set in 2019, which follows the story of Billy Summers, a 44-year-old veteran of the Iraq war and former Marine sniper. He has since turned his sharpshooting skills to contract killing. However, Billy is a man with a strict moral code, and his hits are always “bad guys.” This novel follows Billy’s last job before retirement. He has a new “clean” identity ready—Dalton Smith, an IT worker—and this final hit promises to be lucrative; Nick Majarian, a Las Vegas middleman with whom Billy has worked before, has offered him $500,000 up front, with $1.5 million to be transferred into an offshore account once the assassination has been carried out. Things become more complicated than Billy anticipated and this “last job” genre piece sprawls into something more complicated and unforeseen.

Billy Summers was first published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2021. This guide refers to the paperback edition published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2022.

Content Warning: This novel contains depictions of sexual violence and rape, allusions to pedophilia and child abuse, graphic violence, and bigoted and racist language, including racial slurs (none of which are directly quoted in this guide).