Mr. Mercedes: A Novel (1) (The Bill Hodges Trilogy)

Retired cop Bill Hodges has a few regrets in life including the fact that he didn't find the driver who plowed through a crowd of people killing eight and wounding many more. Nobody knows that Brady Hartsfield is the notorious killer known as “Mr. Mercedes” and he could get away with it except for one thing - he felt a rush of power after killing those people and he wants that rush again. As Brady makes plans to kill on an even grander scale, he begins to talk to Hodges and the two are soon playing a game of “cat and mouse”. Hodges, with the help of a few friends, sets out to find out who Mr. Mercedes is and stop him but will he be too late?

A nice change of pace from his usual style (there is not a hint of the supernatural in this book), “Mr. Mercedes” is a nicely done thriller by Stephen King. The book starts off with a bang (literally) and showcases what King does best - create memorable characters (even in the first few pages of the book) that you care about. Following that stunning and heartbreaking beginning, King created a core group of characters that you care about (Hodges, Jerome, Janey, and Holly) and a character that you will hate (Brady who may be the scariest Stephen King villain of all time simply because his character is so real and could exist in real life). “Mr. Mercedes” features King’s classic theme of Good vs. Evil and truthfully when I first started reading the book I thought King wasn't going to break any new ground but somehow he managed to. King has a habit of telegraphing events before they happen but don't get too complacent when reading this – there are times when you think you know where he's going and then Pow! he pulls the rug out from under your feet (I can picture him rubbing his hands together gleefully while writing these scenes!). As for the ending of the book - endings are often one of King’s weaknesses and while there is a big buildup to the inevitable showdown of Good vs. Evil the conclusion to the final “battle” was a bit of a letdown. On the other hand, the last few sentences of the book are a nice twist and set up to the next book in the series.

“Mr. Mercedes” is a nice change of pace for Stephen King.

I'm not a big horror fan, but Stephen King has always had the ability to hook the reader on the first page, so I've read my fair share of his novels and short story collections. MR. MERCEDES isn't really horror anyway. King's son, Joe Hill, must have influenced him to try the mystery genre, and that's what this book is.

King hooks us with these two likable characters, Augie Odenkirk and Janice Cray, who are both standing in the rain waiting for a job fair to open. A thousand people are to be hired and they're both desperate for work. Janice is so desperate she's brought her baby with her and it needs to be changed and fed. Augie loans her his sleeping bag. Just when she's all set, a Mercedes plows into the crowd. We're hoping Augie, our hero, and Janice and her baby aren't hurt, but that rat King won't let us have our way. So then who's this story about? King is a lot like John Sandford in that he lets you follow the killer throughout the book. This killer is a computer repairman, part-time ice cream salesman (That's how he gets to know the real hero of the book, a retired cop, named Bill Hodges, who's thinking of eating his father's hand gun). Brady Hartfield has seen him through the window. and he intuitively knows that's what Bill is doing. So he writes Bill a letter, signing it Mr. Mercedes. (BTW, that's a flaw in the book. Newspapers don't give serial murderers nicknames anymore like the Zodiac killer or Son of Sam. That's what they want, publicity. If they do, they'll hear from the police.) Brady's new target is Bill Hodges, and he wants to drive him to suicide, just as he's done with the owner of the Mercedes.

Brady Hartsfield is one sick puppy. He's got an Oedipus complex for one thing. He still lives with his mother, and he's got a man cave in the basement where he torments his future victims via the dark Internet. He's trying to get Bill to sign on to a site called “Debbie's Blue Umbrella”, but actually he's done Bill a favor; Bill now has a reason to live besides watching Judge Judy on TV: to track down this monster before he hurts somebody else.

Often divorced Bill also meets the owner of the Mercedes's sister, Janey. Mr. Mercedes has sent her sister a letter similar to the one Bill received. Bill is 62; Janey is 44 and beautiful. For some reason, she likes him, despite the age disparity. She hasn't had much luck with men, and Bill is a very nice man. She wants in on the search for the killer. So does Jerome, Bill's lawn boy, who also happens to be an all-American boy bent on being accepted at an Ivy league school. But he likes to pretend he's a field hand around Bill as he's an African-American. He's also adept at computers, and he helps Bill check out “Debbie's Blue Umbrella.” The last member of the group is Holly, whose mother was Mercedes owner Olivia Trelawney's sister. Holly ia forty-four years old but her mother, along with other bullies, has driven her to bat city She's got more ticks than a Rocky Mountain forest, but she's also computer literate, and she's brave and smart, despite her condition.

This book will keep you on the edge of your chair until the climax is over, and you'll keep reading to find out what happened to everybody after that. It even ends with a cliffhanger of sorts. Usually that's a no-no for me, but I would have read the next King mystery anyway.

I just reread the "Mr Mercedes" trilogy by Stephen King. I liked them a lot. Then I watched the mini series on Peacock. I WISH I could have a chat with Mr. King and ask him WHY he allows the powers that be to rewrite so much of his book for the TV script. It really bugs me. And the worst part is, it's not just that he lets them, he is in on it as one of the executive producers. And it's not the first time I've seen it happen. Other books of his were altered for TV or movies.

Some of the best parts of Mr. Mercedes were either left out or totally rewritten. Characters were added which weren't in the books. Characters were removed who had been in the books. I found myself shaking my head more than once saying, "THAT didn't happen!" Or, "who the heck is that?" Jerome's character was a lot less appealing than he was in the books. There was no boy band concert with Barbara attending which I think would have been a really great part of the movie. They killed off Hodges former partner, Pete who outlived him in the series. Holly was in her 50's in the book but 31 in the TV series. Lou didn't kill Brady or go to trial in the books. No cabin in the woods in the dead of winter where Hodges, Holly and Jerome found Brady. There were just a LOT of changes that I felt were not for the better. I kept wondering, why even bother calling the TV series, "Mr. Mercedes". The plot has so many changes you could just call it something else and leave the books out of it altogether!

I wanted to share these feelings with Mr. King himself and figured he at least had a web page where his fans could post but it's been shut down. Don't know why. Of course there is no way to e-mail him or write him directly, which hey, I get. He could not possibly read all the fan mail I'm sure he'd get. Here's hoping he does maybe check out his book reviews on good old amazon.

My favorite book of King's is, "Duma Key" but I am afraid of how they will mutilate it when the time comes for them to make a movie or TV series out of that one. It seems like S.K. would insist they stick to his book. He surely has enough clout now to have things done the way he wants them. Or perhaps he really doesn't mind all the changes or even contributes to them, which really would be disgusting!

You wrote a great trilogy. Stephen. Why didn't you stick to the book for the TV series? I just don't get it! I am begging you please, stick to the book when/if "Duma Key" is made into a movie or TV series.

I love this new and improved Stephen King 2.0. I am not going to rehash the publisher's summary or go too deep into the plot as some consider writing about ANY plot points as spoilers. There are no spoilers here, just my opinion of the type of readers that would enjoy Mr. Mercedes as much as I did.

In my opinion, there are three major buckets of Stephen King fans,

A) Readers that love his earlier works that featured densely written supernatural stories that kindled the type of mental terrorism that innovated the genre. Novels that are deep in character and plot line development to the point they easily reach the level of an 800+ page epic. (See:

Bill Hodges is a recently retired policeman. He hasn't had a very successful retirement so far as he never developed any hobbies. He basically sits in his recliner and watches daytime television while brooding over the case he couldn't solve before he retired. His only friend is the teenage boy who mows his lawn and helps him with errands.

The case that he broods over is the Mercedes murder. While a line of people waited for a job fair to open, out of the early morning fog came a Mercedes, plowing into the crowd. Eight people were killed, including a mother and baby, and many more injured. The driver calmly drove away afterwards.

Then something unimaginable happens. The man who drove the Mercedes that day contacts Hodges. He starts a cat and mouse game with him, daring him to catch him before he kills again. Bill doesn't want to turn this over to his ex-partner but is determined to catch the killer himself. His only allies are Jerome, the teenage boy, Jenny, the sister of the woman who owned the Mercedes and Holly, her niece who is on the spectrum but a computer whiz. Can this ragtag mix of people stop the killer before he strikes again?

This book is the first in the Bill Hodges trilogy. It also introduces Holly, who got her own book this past summer. Mr. Mercedes won the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Hodges is a sympathetic character as are the people who help him. The killer is clearly beyond saving as his entire life has been full of psychopathy. The reader will cheer for Hodges and his team in a race against time and the book is recommended for thriller readers.

To write this review in a way that gives this book (and its competitors) a fair reading, I need to ignore the fact that Mr King has already published close to 60 world wide best selling novels and that he is one of the biggest selling novelists the world has ever seen. I also need to ignore the fact that he has penned some of the finest supernatural and alternative fantasy stories ever published and that some of his works are at times close to beautiful, moving, pure, literature. So now I can treat this new release as a single, standalone novel and I will pretend that I have never heard of Stephen King. So I sit down, turn on my glorious Kindle DX and I commence reading. The story starts like this...

Augie Odenkirk is unemployed, single, with no dependants, but also no short term career prospects. He meets a single mom desperate for work at a small town exposition promoting local employment. Within a scattering of pages and a few hundred words, the reader finds themselves compelled to learn more of these two innocents, struggling daily against the economic forces - and that of fate itself - which have taken such a cruel toll on their lives. And to wish them well. Of course, some of us may want them to find happiness and ride off together into their own sunset. Waiting in line in the pre-dawn darkness, however, they are met and destroyed by the modern day face of evil. The reader is already attached to the characters in question - the trilogy of victims we are introduced to are all so beautifully drawn and created by Mr King that within a handful of pages you are shocked and almost moved to tears by the drama that unfolds before your eyes.

We subsequently meet the hero of the tale - Retired Detective Hodges.

On a superficial level it is easy to imagine flaws in the book where none exist. The good guys are obvious and the bad guy is, too. One can't call this book a mystery, its more of a totally modern techno thriller update on the eternal battle between good and evil. Mr King's legion of Constant Readers will be very familiar (and comfortable) with this theme. Emotional attachment has always been a strong point of Mr King and this book is no exception. The bad guy is despicably bad and the good guy is so human (ie: flawed) that he is in our hearts by the end of part one. As the story progresses, we get to know the book's characters even more closely and we see the huge mistake Brady has made by taking on Hodges. The plot and pacing are perfect. Mr King has always left traces of addictive caffeine scattered across his pages so that it is almost impossible to stop reading until he says it's ok to stop reading, and this latest thriller is no exception. The suspense builds chapter by chapter. With the increased awareness the reader has of uber-sicko Brady Hartsfield, the more terrified they will become of what his plans for impending chaos he has in store. On a personal level, it appears that he lacks social, moral and even ethical boundaries, which makes him a very dangerous individual.

Ret. Det. Hodges, if only you knew what you are up against.

But the hero of this tale is retired, as we know. His only child is a fully grown and mature woman. His wife is dead. Being involved in this case again - albeit unofficially - has given his life some direction. One wonders even at an early stage of the book, how the story will end, and who will survive. Selfishly, one hopes for Hodges to live to fight another day, at least for the reason that Mr King will have to give us at least one more book!!!!!

The ending to this new age techno thriller is fine. It leaves the reader wanting more, with the potential for a sequel featuring at least one of the charscters. Mr King led the reader a merry dance before the final page, so we were never sure what was going to happen. My heart was in my chest at least once during the final stanza and i am glad that my fears and assumptions were wrong. So once more, the world owes Mr King a huge thank you for providing another strong example of his story telling abilities. The only complaint i have is that there was no mention of his Constant Readers in his afterword.

BFN Greggorio!!!!!

No spoilers (for rn): Honestly this book gripped my attention from the very begginning, which is usually not the case with Stephen King books for me. It was clear to me that this book wasn't going to be a horror novel, but I was fine with that. King knows how to really build his characters and put them situations that get you reading faster than a rocket. I mean seriously, those last few chapters were like rocket fuel to me! I read faster than I ever thought I could, and that was all thanks to the situation he put the main characters in.

SPOILERS: Now, there are a few things in this books that made me minus a star. One being that it felt as though King didn't know how to bring all the puzzles together in time. It just kept on stretching and stretching to the point where characters just suddenly SOMEHOW knew information. For example, one of the main characters bring up a concert as the destination of which our main bad guy was going to attend. Secondly, getting into the computer of Brady's mom..... I mean seriously, she's cracked out of her mind and watches the tv all day, she doesn't have time to write word for word Brady's computer codes to say out loud. Holly, multiple times, has guessed things out of the blue and got them correct. It's lazy writing. It just feels like King didn't know how else they will get this information. So, as an escape plan, he made Holly or Jerome guess things and somehow get it right each and every time.

4/5 because the story was very fun to read.

I am a big Stephen King fan. I don’t buy too many books these days, but I do buy his. Does he need the money? Absolutely not. Could I easily download it illegally? Most definitely. That being said, every time a book of his is released, I buy it that same day for full price. I’m a big fan (although, not a big enough fan to sit through an entire episode of Under the Dome without getting distracted 20 minutes in). I want to like every book of his as much as I liked 11/22/63 or Misery. Mr. Mercedes, unfortunately, didn’t quite reach that level. It was good. I finished it quickly. But it wasn’t classic King, and things fell into place just a little too easily for my taste.

Here is a brief synopsis: In the frigid pre-dawn hours, in a distressed Midwestern city, hundreds of desperate unemployed folks are lined up for a spot at a job fair. Without warning, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes. In another part of town, months later, a retired cop named Bill Hodges is still haunted by the unsolved crime. When he gets a crazed letter from someone who self-identifies as the “perk” and threatens an even more diabolical attack, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing another tragedy.

Anything more than that will start to give things away. Until you’re blindsided by that tweet that Stephen King insists is not a spoiler. Seems like it gives a big part of the story away, doesn’t it? He says it doesn’t, which is the only reason I posted it on this review. There is a lot of great information about the trilogy here, and I’ll probably still end up buying the other books when they come out, with unreasonably high expectations.

It’s not that this book was bad. It’s scary, the characters are well developed and you’ll finish the whole thing pretty quickly. It’s just too predictable and expected. If something had to happen to ensure that the story would move in a way you saw coming, it was going to happen. Time and time again I found myself rooting for the bad guy just so the story would throw me for a loop. When you read the story you’ll know how awful that sounds, but it’s true. All that said, I still read it and was on the edge of my seat for a majority of it. So, I guess when King isn’t at his best, he’s still the best.

It’s worth noting that there are reviews out there stating this book is one of his best. Some went as far as saying, “King never fails to surprise me.” In other words, the exact opposite of my experience. As always, reading preferences are subjective, so pick up the book and see for yourself. I’m excited that two more books are already announced because I like Stephen King, and as long as he keeps writing, I’ll still buy (and 99% of the time, enjoy) his books. I did enjoy this one, but it wasn’t King’s best. If I did a star rating, I’d go with a 3/5.