This is classic Stephen King, and this is why I read almost everything he writes. (I haven’t read Gerald’s Game or the Dark Tower series.)

A decent police officer and a politically ambitious DA, a horrific crime, a popular teacher and coach, seemingly overwhelming evidence – but things aren’t what they seem. Eventually the detective agency from the Mr. Mercedes trilogy gets pulled in.

I’m not going to try to summarize beyond that; other GR reviewers are much better than I am at summarizing without spoiling.

As always, the characters are real. The good ones have a bit of heroism mixed in with a lot of human flaws. The bad ones have resentments, self-pity, and anger that can be manipulated to make them even worse. We spend most of our time with the good ones, which is what makes it possible for me to enjoy reading a book with such terrible things in it.

And the plot is a page-turner. I read half of it Thursday night and got to about fifty pages from the end on Friday; finished Saturday morning. It’s satisfying and wise.

I noticed a couple of places where a pop culture reference is explained, in contrast to earlier King where references are dropped in and readers are expected to pick them up without help. I wonder if it’s because pop culture is more fragmented now – we don’t all see the same tv shows and movies – or because King’s older now, so his references are drawn from a bigger pool of time that younger readers might not be familiar with – or if it’s just a new editor with different preferences.

Inspiring, entertaining, interesting, informative. Hadfield did the narration on the audiobook so I got to hear it all in his own voice.

I’m so glad there are people like Chris Hadfield in the world: hard-working, down-to-earth, smart, can-do, humble, friendly, and helpful. His book is a memoir with bonus lessons for living. There’s all kinds of interesting stuff about things like the 40-minute process to collect urine for a research project he participated in on the International Space Station (Peeing For Science), and what it’s like to adjust to gravity again after spending months in space. It’s all in the context of the importance of the space program, and with a little coda about the importance of protecting the Earth.

The lessons for living are down to earth and practical, too:
* Enjoy the process – the only thing you can control is your attitude. If your sense of self worth depends on achieving your ultimate goal (like space flight), which is affected by lots of things outside your control, you’ll never be happy. Study, learn, and appreciate every day.
* Practice negative thinking – visualize the worst and figure out how to prevent it
* Be humble – he calls this aiming to be a zero. Be competent and don’t get in the way while you observe and attempt to learn, rather than trying to impress others.
* Sweat the small stuff – we all know how important this is in the space program, where a tiny error can lead to tragedy.
* Appreciate and recognize other people’s efforts and sacrifices that enable you to work towards your own goals.