Mr. Mercedes

I picked this novel and its sequel, Finders Keepers, up at the Thrift Store, as I was intrigued to see what Stephen King would do with detective fiction. Although I am really fairly well done with spending time inside the head of a psychopath, King kept me engaged with Brady Hartsfield, turning some of the things we think we know about such people sideways (for instance, Brady is a single guy living at home with his Mother, and their relationship is downright icky, but he is fairly self-aware; he isn't driven by either abnormal obsession with or hatred for Mommy). And, mercifully, the Brady sections of the novel do not predominate. Mr. Mercedes was a page turner, and the suspense is palpable---King set me up a couple times for a really show more nasty thing that didn't happen, but something else nasty happened instead. Knowing that there are two more books in this trilogy gave me some confidence that King wasn't going to bump off Det. (Ret.) Hodges in this one. But the last book is called "End of Watch", which suggests he might be saving that wallop until his faithful readers are REALLY invested in the character. I just don't trust the man, who also likes to sneak damned clown masks in to so much of his fiction. (He understands our/my fears too well.) Still, there's no question about his ability to get and keep a reader's attention, so he's got me hooked on Hodges and company now. show less

Whenever King addresses his "Constant Reader" in his forewords or afterwords, I am one of those readers he's referring to. I've been with him right from the beginning and I've read everything he's put out. And though I don't enjoy his as much as I used to, and every so often I get ready to write him off as having lost the touch, he comes back. For every Under the Dome, there's an 11/22/63, for every Doctor Sleep there's a Joyland.

And for me, after the high expectation and low enjoyment of Doctor Sleep, I really wanted another book that made me confident of King again. He promised horror with Sleep and I didn't get it. I didn't have high expectations for Mr. Mercedes, but hey, it's King, and for the most part, a King on his worst day is show more better than a lot of popular, best-selling authors on their best (I'm looking at you, Dan Brown), so of course I'm gonna give his latest a go.

The set up didn't really intrigue me, but King's writing quickly pulled me in and I found myself quickly rolling through the story. It unfolded in King's easy, natural way, though, to be honest, there was a couple of times when I found myself questioning the order of certain things. Hodges decides to really go after the Mercedes Killer before a pivotal event concerning Janey, that I really felt should have fallen after.

Yes, there were times when I rolled my eyes and thought, no, really Hodges, if you were half the cop you were made out to be, you would have handed this off long ago, or you wouldn't have put your friends in the danger you did, or you would have anticipated some of this.

But, for each instance as that, he wowed me with other parts. The Janey character was enjoyable, but Holly was a standout. One of the best characters he'd built in years. The relationship between Hartfield and his mother was uncomfortable and creepy. Not horror, necessarily, but horrible, in all the right ways.

But the standout for me was King's scenes at the Round Here concert, particularly with Jerome's mother and sister absolutely crackled for me. They were as real as anything I've experienced in life. I find it stunningly rare that an author can capture the excitement of a concert. Many have tried and virtually all have failed in my opinion, but here, King does it...with his fictional boy band, of all things.

Overall, while I wouldn't call this one of his standouts, it's definitely better than his average. I dug it. show less

Stephen King, nous plonge dans un thriller psychologique captivant où l'horreur ne réside pas dans le surnaturel mais dans les recoins les plus sombres de l'âme humaine.

L'intrigue, bien qu'elle ne brille pas par son originalité, tisse une toile captivante autour de personnages complexes et attachants.

Mais ce qui fait la force de ce roman, ce ne sont pas tant les rebondissements de l'intrigue que la psychologie des personnages. Stephen King excelle à donner vie à des protagonistes imparfaits et torturés.

On s'attache rapidement à Bill Hodges mais aussi à Holly et Jerome.

Mr. Mercedes est un roman qui ne se contente pas de divertir, il nous force à réfléchir sur la nature du mal et sur la capacité de l'homme à commettre des show more atrocités. Stephen King nous rappelle que les monstres les plus redoutables ne sont pas toujours ceux qui se cachent dans le noir, mais ceux qui marchent parmi nous, en plein jour.

Si vous recherchez un thriller psychologique haletant et percutant, Mr. Mercedes est un choix parfait. Préparez-vous à être happé par l'histoire et à frissonner devant l'horreur de l'humain. show less

Can't believe it, but I'm DNFing a Stephen King book. :(

I had a few HUGE issues with this one.

Firstly, the characters were just so...boring. I felt like they all had the personalities of your average sheet of plywood. The antagonist seemed like a bundle of cliches with a few really gross/disturbing thought patterns thrown in that made me not want to read his parts. The protagonist was a snooze fest whose motivations made little sense and whose serious lack of judgment challenged his backstory as a commended police officer. The ensemble of side characters were seemingly "flavorful" at first glance, but they weren't very well developed.

Secondly, the plot was also boring. 30% of the way through the story, and nothing of real consequence show more had happened since the inciting incident. Now, I looked up what happens later in the book to see if it was worth the effort, and...none of it really enticed me to keep reading, unfortunately. I don't think I could stand another 70% of that book with those characters.

Basically, if the characters lose me, the book has lost me, no matter how quick the pace or how intense the action gets as time goes on. The long lead in to the real "meat" of the plot combined with a group of characters that fall entirely flat for me -- sorry, I just can't hack it. And that makes me really sad. Because I usually love King's characters. This time around, though, it was a miss; which I don't guess is entirely surprising, given how many (very different) books King has out.

Mr. Mercedes just wasn't my cup of tea, it seems. Real pity. Hopefully my next King book will be a better experience. show less

Okay. Just... Wow.

Wow, wow, wow!

Stephen King has been hit and miss for me. It was incredible and Carrie was meh, so I wasn't sure how I would like this one. I've heard great things, but you never know. I heard this book was more thriller than horror, and that was right. And man, was it one intense thriller and it was so good!

This book is long, but it's worth every page. The book slowly but surely ramps up until you get to the insane action of the end. Plus, that bloody cliffhanger that DROVE ME INSANE. Now I need to finish this series, which will definitely be a while.

Hodges is a retired cop, and he is haunted by the Mercedes crime. Some crazy dude ran over people at a job fair, and he really wants to solve this mystery. Lucky for show more him, Mr. Mercedes is still up to his old tricks and wants to commit more crimes. He really liked teasing his victims and Bill Hodges. Bill ends up teaming up with Jerome and Holly to try to solve this mystery, and he faces some real tough losses along the way.

I'm impressed. Thrillers in general can be hit and miss for me, so having this one pull me in so tightly and keep me hooked was awesome!

There are definitely parts of this book that seem unrealistic or seem dumb, but I don't care. This book was a great thrilling read that pulled me in and kept me. Sure, it was dumb Bill didn't try to get some of his buddies from the force to help, but that was half the fun. Some of the racism in this book was rough, but it is what it is. I definitely don't recommend speaking like some of the characters in the book.

Overall, this is a great book by Stephen King. It's not supernatural, it's a crime thriller with splashes of horror. Stephen King has done a great job crafting this story and I can't wait to grab the remainder of this series.

Four out of five stars. show less

Penso che questo romanzo mi sarebbe piaciuto se fosse stato un racconto di duecento pagine in meno e se King avesse eliminato tutte le sottotrame inutili. È chiaro che il suo obiettivo era di scrivere un romanzo thriller ad alta tensione, una lotta contro il tempo e una silenziosa guerra fredda tra due avversari che finiscono per distruggersi a vicenda, ma... non ci è riuscito.
Hodges è un personaggio francamente odioso e me ne auguro la morte; Hartsfield aveva tutte le carte in regola per essere un ottimo villain ma con l'avanzare del libro diventa una macchietta; Janey non dovrebbe esistere ed è pressoché inutile; i personaggi secondari sono gli unici ben caratterizzati.
In effetti ciò che più sorprende di questo libro è che i show more personaggi restano sempre monodimensionali, non cambiano, non evolvono, semplicemente sono delle creature, dei pupazzi che King muove a proprio piacimento, senza darsi il disturbo di svilupparli.
Ad esempio Hodges: il suo unico tratto della personalità è essere un poliziotto Buono TM, e poiché è buono buono buonissimo buono come il pane tutte le cose che fa, anche le azioni illegali, vengono giustificate. E poi, perché decide di dare la caccia a Brady da solo? Perché non informa i suoi ex colleghi e coinvolge dei civili? Risposta: boh. Hodges non è credibile perché non ha motivazioni, semplicemente decide che Hartsfield dev'essere catturato e che lui deve farlo da solo (perché la narrazione ci tiene a informarci che l'ex detective è un genio, anche se per tutto il romanzo fa la figura del cretino). Se King avesse tagliato la storyline di Janey, oppure se l'avesse introdotta all'inizio come amante di Hodges che Hartsfield ammazza per spingerlo al suicidio, oppure se ci venisse detto che Brady ha ammazzato la moglie di Hodges, o la figlia, o il cane di Jerome, allora Hodges avrebbe avuto un motivo per volerlo catturare da solo. Così, invece... no. Agisce senza motivazioni, ed è semplicemente incoerente, irreale, idiota.
E poi Hartsfield: nella prima metà del libro è convincente, un cattivo spaventoso nella sua normalità, squallido, crudele. Poi però King decide che non gli va bene, e Brady diventa una macchietta, una caricatura idiota. Poiché Hodges è buono, Brady dev'essere Super Cattivo TM, ma in maniera esagerata, ridondante e irritante. Hodges ha il migliore amico nero (e l'atteggiamento del white supremacist che prende a cuore i neri per dimostrare di non essere razzista)? A Brady fanno schifo i neri. Hodges è paladino dei diritti delle donne? Brady dà della troia a tutte le donne con cui ha a che fare. È come se, non riuscendo (o non volendo) a dargli un'adeguata caratterizzazione, King abbia deciso che il modo giusto per rendere il suo coprotagonista un villain spaventoso fosse renderlo ridicolo.
In conclusione, questo è il settimo romanzo di King che leggo, e il primo che mi delude. Spero solo che nel resto della trilogia il nostro smetta di identificarsi in maniera tanto patetica in Hodges. show less

I've lately only been reading Stephen King's collections of short stories, finding his novels somewhat longer than they need to be. He is a talented writer, though, able to bring a character or a scene to life in a way few popular authors can. But I had to read Mr Mercedes when I found out that it was a crime novel.

Bill Hodges is a retired detective who is struggling with retirement when he receives a letter from a man who murdered several people by driving a Mercedes through a crowd of people waiting to enter a job fair. Hodges had investigated the crime, and it was one of the few he had been unable to solve before he retired. Soon, with the help of an intelligent and computer-savvy teenager and the sister of the woman who had owned show more the Mercedes in question, Hodges is, once again, trying to solve this crime.

There's always a question mark next to a book by an established author writing in a genre that they aren't known for. Will they respect the parameters of the genre, or even know what they are? King delivers here; not only does he stay well within each unwritten rule of the genre, but he does so in a way that demonstrates a real understanding of the hard-boiled private detective novel. What's more, [Mr Mercedes] is a good book. The characters, from Hodges himself, to the tertiary characters, are all fully developed. King follows the rules of the genre, but in a way that makes them appear less like strictures, than like naturally occurring events that had to happen that way. And he has created a lovely team of investigators, from Hodges, whose gruff exterior hides the inevitable warm heart, to Jerome, the ivy-league bound seventeen-year-old who forms an unlikely friendship with both the retired cop and to Holly, who is one of the best characters King has written - an anxiety-prone, unattractive woman in her forties who is valued by the other two for who she is. I hope so much that the next novel in the series includes all three characters. show less