End of Watch

Der letzte Teil der Bill Hodges-Reihe. Irgendwie schade, denn der Detective ist mir samt seinen Freunden sehr ans Herz gewachsen. Für mich war der Roman ein richtig typischer King. Es gab alles, was das Herz begehrt: Freude, Tränen, Spannung bis zum Schluss und das übernatürliche Element, das mich mehr als einmal grübeln ließ, ob Brady Hartsfield von allein schon so böse war oder ob das Böse ihn als Ventil benutzte. Manche Leser mögen genau diesen übersinnlichen Aspekt bemängeln, aber ich fand ihn ganz klasse. Was mir bei den drei Romanen super gut gefallen hat, war die Entwicklung der Figuren. Besonders Holly, die in „Mr. Mercedes“ noch eher unscheinbar war und in „Finderlohn“ dann so richtig aufblühte, glänzte im show more dritten Band. Mit ihr hat King wirklich eine tolle Figur geschaffen, von der ich so gern viel mehr gelesen hätte. Sie ist nicht die typische Superfigur, sondern mit ihren Mitte, Ende 40, ihren Neurosen, ihrem zwanghaften Verhalten und dem Mangel an sozialer Kompetenz einfach mal das glatte Gegenteil von allen großen Heldinnen. Ihr wird keine dramatische Vergangenheit angedichtet, auf der sie sich ausruhen kann, sondern sie IST einfach so wie sie ist und arbeitet trotzdem an sich selbst. Holly ist einfach der Hammer und ich liebe diese Frau. Da hatte King wirklich ein gutes Händchen.

Gefreut hat mich auch, dass Jerome wieder mit von der Partie war und auch seine Schwester Barbara eine Rolle spielte. Bei der ersten Szene mit ihr habe ich schon die Luft angehalten, weil es so spannend war.

Ein ebenfalls interessantes Thema, das King aufgreift, ist der Selbstmord unter Jugendlichen und inwiefern diese Selbstmordgedanken sich ausbreiten können bzw. zum Erfolg führen können, wenn Jugendliche selbstmordgefährdet sind. 2013 gab es dazu eine Studie, deren Ergebnis belegte, dass 12- bis 13jährige Jugendliche ein fünffach erhöhtes Risiko haben, Selbstmord zu begehen, nachdem sie mit dem Selbstmord eines anderen konfrontiert worden sind. Das finde ich selbst erschreckend. Dabei müssen sie den Menschen nicht einmal persönlich gekannt haben. Dieser Faktor hat fast keinen Einfluss darauf. King fasst dieses Thema auf und spinnt es weiter. Brady Hartsfield ist schon ein ausgesprochenes Arschloch. Schon immer schob er die Schuld auf andere, egal was passierte. Nie war er selbst für irgendwas verantwortlich. Am Tode anderer hatte er hingegen besonders Freude und je mehr jemand gelitten hat, desto mehr hat es Brady gefallen.

Fazit
Für mich war „Mind Control“ ein guter Abschluss für die Bill Hodges-Reihe. Hätte ich mehr Zeit gehabt, hätte ich das Buch wohl in einem Rutsch durchgelesen. Es war spannend und hat mich sehr gefesselt und eins steht fest, Holly, Bill und Jerome werde ich vermissen. show less

In the words of the great Jake Peralta: noice.

I really enjoyed the other two books in the series and I'm currently wishing that I've read all three in a row. As it is now I've forgotten the finer details of the plots of those, but End of Watch does a pretty good job of catching you up, so it wasn't confusing or anything.

No spoilers, but the "twist" at the end of book two pays off in this one. I'm not sure if I should be mad about that or not, but since it made for a good book I had a hard time putting down I guess I'm not allowed to complain.

I wish we'd seen more Jerome in this one because I really like all three main characters, and especially when they're together. Holly is the best though. I think we've seen enough smart and weird show more and socially awkward dudes as characters, but not nearly enough women like that and she's like a breath of fresh air.

Oh, and Bill. #heartbreakemoji I will speak no more of it, but you'll see it coming as soon as you start reading the book.

The Swedish translation was full of typos and seemed very rushed. Extremely annoying. show less

End of Watch, Stephen King, author; Will Patton, narrator
This book is quintessential King. He marries the bizarre with the ordinary, revenge with retribution, horror with wonder, credibility with implausibility, reality with fantasy, nightmares with dreams, wickedness with goodness, and all the while he keeps you on the edge of your seat captivated by this creative novel. While you may not like the content, and it often veers off into brutally descriptive, savage detail, it is tightly knit, fast paced and gripping. Moments of humor, with witty comments, sometimes lighten the steadier tension created by King.
This book is the third and final novel in a series which began with “The Mercedes Man” and was followed by “Finders show more Keepers”. In “End of Watch”, some of the same major characters are brought to life. Bill Hodges is the elderly retired cop, now private investigator, working with Holly Gibney in their firm called Finders Keepers. Jerome Robinson is a young black man, exceptionally likeable for his compassion, who attends Harvard University. He and computers are well acquainted. Holly is open and honest to a fault because of an emotional problem. She is a computer genius. She and Jerome are good buddies. Kermit William Hodges starts out seeming like a curmudgeon, but he is really a teddy bear who has a very positive influence on both Holly and Jerome. The three care deeply for each other and have a long history, in the previous books, which binds them. When the book ends, the reader may wonder if Holly will soon be the star of her own future series of novels.
In this book, Brady Hartsfield, the killer from the first book in the series, is in the Kiner Memorial Hospital in their Brain Injury Clinic, supposedly languishing away from a serious brain injury inflicted upon him by Holly Gibney when she foiled his attempt to blow up a packed concert hall. He is under the care of a neurologist, Dr. Felix Babineau. In secret, Dr. Babineau has been using an experimental drug on Brady, although he pretends he is only administering vitamins to him. Brady has made some minimal improvement, physically and mentally. When strange things begin to happen in his hospital room with things seemingly moving about on their own, the hospital staff becomes spooked. Then some hospital employees begin to act strangely as well, and suddenly, murders and suicides start piling up.
Hodges used to visit Brady in the hospital. He had no love for this man and was happy to see him suffering. He and Holly were called to the scene of what is supposed to be a murder/suicide. It is very suspicious, however. One of the dead was a paralyzed victim of Brady’s first horrific attempted murders at the City Center Job Fair. He used a Mercedes to brutally run down, severely injure and murder innocent people waiting on line to get inside. Isabelle Jaynes does not want him involved. She is the police officer who works with his former partner, Pete Huntley. Izzy is more interested in her career than in getting at the truth, but soon, Pete begins to feed Holly and Bill information secretly. When they are at the crime scene, Holly discovers the Zappit and surreptitiously removes it. Holly is now very skeptical about the possibility of this being an ordinary murder/suicide, and so is Bill. Soon, there are other suicide victims who have Zappits. When Barbara Robinson, Jerome’s sister, becomes involved in these bizarre happenings after an attempted suicide, he returns home to help Holly and Hodges. As the story develops, it turns out that a retro computer game called The Zappit Commander has resurfaced in spite of the fact that it was taken off the market because it had a mildly hypnotic effect on some users. One of the games on this gadget, “the fishing hole”, seems to have a strange effect on the users.
Hartsfield, seems to have an unusual, newly developed and enhanced brain function, perhaps due to Babineau’s experiments or perhaps due to the injury. Now he has devised a diabolical plan to hurt as many of the would-be attendees to that cancelled concert by giving away the Zappits. Somehow, he has reprogrammed them, with the help of a woman who once worked with him. How he is able to accomplish this will astonish most readers.
The reader knows that Brady is a sick puppy, and there seems to be no end to his sadistic need. Brady is not likeable. The constant over the top barbarism is very disturbing, yet the story remains very compelling. I can’t even imagine how King thinks up such awful things, but I know that his fans will love this series. I liked former Detective Hodges, a man of courage and strong convictions who displayed heart in spite of his seemingly coarse crust and the difficult future road he will be forced to travel. I loved Holly because of what seems like her total lack of guile coupled with genius. Her penchant for total honesty is heartwarming. Then there is Jerome, who isn’t a major part of this story, but he is a young black man possessing all the values necessary to make him successful in life. He attends Harvard University and does construction work when he is not studying and going to classes. He is upwardly mobile but acutely aware of the who he is and the problems of society. He adds humor and tenderness which is a quality he displays often, especially, with Holly.
King injects moments from each of the two previous books into this novel so that the reader is never at a loss to understand the story as it relates to the past. Although it gets repetitive, at times, it is always tense and gripping. Perhaps, when completed, one will wonder as I did, if Dr. Babineau experimented on Brady or Brady experimented on him? How could Brady have realistically accomplished what he did? Was the ending satisfying? Did it signify another series coming?I bet a lot of readers and fans will be eagerly awaiting the next novel that possibly features Holly and Jerome working together with Pete Huntley. show less

5/5

This book is just great, both as a standalone story and as an ending to King's Bill Hodges Trilogy. It completely picks up the small flaws of the last book and offers a thrilling detective story with a hunt for a monstruous criminal.

Let's start talking about the villain. Brady Hartsfield may be human, but he is also another terrifying monster created by King. Just a man raised to be almost pure hatred, despising everything and everyone. And even worse, willing to act on this despise to cause innocent people pain. In almost a similar manner to Pennywise, he feeds off other people's misery. He doesn't want to kill people, he wants to lead people to suicide.

And opposing him is a sickly, retired detective with very few resources. show more Hodges is a refreshing change for a crime thriller detective: he is quick, but most of it comes from experience, he listen to other people and, above it all, he is a nice person. Hodges is absolutely not perfect, but he serves as a great rival to Harsfield's pure monstrosity.

And Holly Gibney shy and scared of the world, a unlikely person to be chosen to defend it, but she is driven to do it for her own personal moral. Simply because she can't let someone like Hartsfield get away with that. She is also clearly one of King's favorite characters in the last few years and you can notice that by how often he uses her.

My review focuses on the characters, which I love, because I think going into the plot too much might ruin things. So, I'll conclude by saying: this book is great, showing most of what I love in King's most recent works and is a damn good finale for a damn good trilogy. show less

A bland ending to a bland trilogy, though Stephen King almost manages to make it all passably readable,

I think the biggest problem is that King went all in on a villain who, in the end, is not particularly interesting. He's just a creepy little racist, homophobic, and nihilistic white guy. He worked well enough in the first book of the series, but he just wasn't worth bringing back and spending so much time laying out ever detail of his dumb, sadistic plan. He did little more than serve up a couple of triggering scenes busting on gay and fat people. And, really, since the whole novel is built around suicidal ideation, it is probably more triggering than entertaining for a lot of potential readers.

And is the Sno-Cat in the finale show more supposed to be King setting right the ending of The Shining film vis a vis-à-vis Dick Hallorann? Anti-climactic as hell. show less

A satisfying and inventive conclusion to the Bill Hodges trilogy. Brady Hartsfield (our villain from the first in the series, Mr. Mercedes) isn't completely braindead. Thanks to some highly illegal drugs provided by an overzealous doctor, Brady is coming to. His body will remain broken but he's discovered telekinesis and the ability to enter into other people's minds. Over the years he has been honing his talents in order to exact vengeance on Bill Hodges for thwarting his master plan. Brady finds a way to manipulate a hand held game to make it a hypnotic entrance into unsuspecting minds. His sinister pleasure is convincing them to kill themselves. No one could ever believe what he is capable of, perhaps not even Bill Hodges; it's an show more evil so deep that it almost escapes detection, almost. A sad, but believable ending. Stephen King at his best! show less

End of Watch is a very fitting conclusion to Stephen King's masterful Bill Hodges trilogy. I enjoyed every single page of all three books. Super villain Brady Hartsfield is pumped full of pills, he's pumped full of hate, and he's pumped full of powers that he's never had before. If someone doesn't catch on quick, the damage he could do is well beyond all imagining. Who can possibly fight him? One rundown, old ex-cop named Bill Hodges who's just about reached the end of his trail.

I don't think anyone can write about the fight between extraordinary evil and ordinary good better than King. For decades, this man has made us believe in the unbelievable. He's scared us spitless. He's made us cheer on his ordinary heroes. He's made us laugh. show more He's made us cry. He's made us want to join in the fight. End of Watch-- and the entire Hodges trilogy-- had me hook, line, and sinker. If you haven't read them, pick up Mr. Mercedes and board the Stephen King Rollercoaster. You'll be in for the ride of your life. show less