Mr Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)

by Stephen King

A cat-and-mouse suspense thriller featuring a retired homicide detective who's haunted by the few cases he left open, and by one in particular - the pre-dawn slaughter of eight people among hundreds gathered in line for the opening of a jobs fair when the economy was guttering out. Without warning, a lone driver ploughed through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes. The plot is kicked into gear when Bill Hodges receives a letter in the mail, from a man claiming to be the perpetrator. He taunts Hodges with the notion that he will strike again. Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing that from happening. Brady Hartsfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. And he's preparing to kill again. Only Hodges, with a couple of misfit friends, can apprehend the killer in this high-stakes race against time. Because Brady's next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim hundreds, even thousands.

• ISBN10: 1444788620
• ISBN13: 9781444788624
• Publish Date: 3 June 2014
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 6 November 2015
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Imprint: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

For all its technical failings, Mr. Mercedes was a great book.

King writes across so many genres, sometimes it's difficult o know what you're in for. Mr. Mercedes is a thriller, leaning toward a psychological thriller. The book is told mostly from two perspectives - retired detective Bill Hodges and murderer Brady Hartsfield. Bill is all rough around the edges and intent on justice, and Brady is an oedipal case with a taste for blood.

It's really, really easy to want Brady to get caught. He kills people. He's a sociopath. But it's even at the most minute levels... he's racist, a homophobe... just a generally unlikable character in every way. A great villain - King always does well with his villains.

There are definitely some inconsistencies in details that could have been ironed out with more careful research, but one of the perks of being Stephen King is that when you know the craft as well as you do, you get away with skimping on the research. Technical details in computer repair and police procedure are clearly off even to those with a limited knowledge of these things. There's also an instalove relationship that I was not onboard with... but... well... that sorta resolved itself anyway. I really didn't like Jerome's "Tyrone" impression, especially being written by a white author??? But I'm probably being a bit too sensitive on this one... just rubbed me the wrong way.

I was able to overlook the bits and pieces and enjoy the story as a whole - it was a predictable, fast-paced thrilled with an excellent twist at the very end.

[clq]

As they have tended to be for Stephen King books, my expectations were high for this one, especially since the reviews of it have been so favourable. My expectations were almost met, but not quite.
Mr. Mercedes is, of course, a great story. It's dramatic enough from the start to be instantly interesting, and it makes it clear from the outset that this is one of those books where "that couldn't possible happen"-things can actually happen, which is crucial for a book like this to work. It's also refreshingly unpredictable, and I never knew where it was going. This wasn't down to sudden twists and unexpected turns, but rather the compounded effect of a story where both the events and the characters are original enough for me to lose my general sense of "I've seen this kind of thing before" gut-feeling about what is going to happen. The characters are well-developed enough for their actions not to feel out of place, and likeable enough (when they need to be) for me as a reader to care about what happens to them.

That said, I felt that the book as a whole lacked some intensity. The fact that some sections of it were real page-turners made me all the more aware that other sections weren't. It never got boring, but at times it felt a little too much like I was reading a set-up to a future event rather than something that was written for its own sake. I think I've used the phrase "a great story told well" in reviews of Stephen King books before, but this time, for the first time, I feel like this was a great story that perhaps could have been told a little better.
Still, Mr. Mercedes was a really fun, worthwhile read, and delivers more or less exactly what one would expect from a Stephen King story with a blood-soaked umbrella on the cover.

[anne]

Great crime thriller - very traditional and normal for Stephen King.

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes is too big. It is in hardcover, there are so many pages and is not very conducive while reading in bed. My eyes start to get heavy as does the book in hand, having me waking up minutes later with Bill Hodges in my face. Perhaps this is my fault, I saw it all nice and shiny on my library's new shelf and I had to read it. In the end, my goose egg was worth it.

Growing up I read the series Goosebumps, each chapter would end with something to the effect of "The door creaked open slowly…" and in the next chapter we would learn it was only a cat. Even at the time I thought it was a little lame, but I still devoured every Goosebump R.L. Stine wrote. Do not get me wrong, I am by no means comparing Mr. Mercedes to Cry of the Cat, but the suspense factor rings true.

He's got control of himself again and this time his voice commands work. He doesn't waste time, just sits down in front of his Number Three and logs on to Debbie's Blue Umbrella. His Message to Hodges is brief and to the point.
I'm going to kill you
You won't see me coming
pg 231

Stephen King's writing is articulate and artful, and is brilliant when building suspense, and for a child of the 90s it is a grown-up Goosebumps.

Hodges reminded me of of Walt Kowalski (played by Clint Eastwood) in Gran Torino. Throughout Gran Torino, Kowalski's trademark mimed gun comes into play and is perceived as a silly old man but in reality defends those who are in need. In Mr. Mercedes, Hodges is reminiscent of this when he stands up for a young boy in the process of being mugged. By most, these two men are given patronizing smiles, but I see them as two men who are still as sharp as a nail and are more than meets the eye.

For one more pop culture reference, I recently watched The Bodyguard, Rachel Marron is sent death threats and with her life in danger hires Frank, said Bodyguard and together they create bittersweet memories. My point of bringing this up is that Rachel's attempted assassin is a *spoiler alert* cameraman, someone you would never look twice at. Mr. Mercedes is very much like that, easily blending into the crowd unnoticed.

The reader quickly becomes aware of the identity of this merciless driver. I really liked that we learned this right away, hearing all from the horses mouth rather than the telephone game. I also think it is fair to mention that he has a very Norman Bates/Mother relationship with his own parent and kept waiting for the hobby of taxidermy to pop up. In any event our hit and runner is devilishly clever.

My demerit is the fling between Bill and Janey. Why did you have to mix business with pleasure Mr. King? It felt unnecessary, and cheapened the plot. I would have preferred a platonic work relationship. After that, I felt like Bill was solving the case for Janey rather than his desire to solve an opened case, hanging like a carrot above his head.

Mr. Mercedes was creepy, but I found the ending line the creepiest of all.

"He says he has a headache. And he's asking for his mother."

In comparison to the rest one may shake their head and say "what?" I find it terrifying because it reminds me of the ending of the movie Psycho. With Norman caught and his mother still ringing in his head, claims he wouldn't even harm a fly. My point is that some people are delusional enough to think they have done nothing wrong, in other words, a psychopath, and that reason alone kept me up late shivering with goosebumps.

[clairelm]

This is only the second Stephen King book I've read, and I enjoyed this much more than I enjoyed the last one.

Despite not being a horror (which is what I tend to associate with Stephen King), it was a rather disturbing crime story!

I really liked the main characters, especially Hodges, Jerome and Holly. Holly probably had to be my favourite, especially her development as a person.

As it got towards the end of the book, it got harder and harder to put it down. All the different strands seemed to twist together until they finally come together in an explosive finale.

[kimbacaffeinate]

I am a die-hard Stephen King fan and have been since I was a teenager. I love his quirky characters, vivid imagination and his ability to pull me into the story. Recently I have been enjoying audio books and snagged Mr. Mercedes on audio when I saw the narrator was Will Patton. Mr. Mercedes was brilliant mystery crime thriller with an eclectic cast of characters who intrigued me as much as solving the case. I laughed, cringed and gave myself over to the audio.

The tale opens with an unthinkable, seemingly random crime that has horrific consequences and King had me hooked. The crime goes unsolved and is one of a handful that plagues now retired cop Bill Hodges. He sits in his home day after day watching a regiment of daily talk shows, fondling his gun, and contemplating suicide. When the mail falls through his door he finds a letter from someone identifying themselves as Mr. Mercedes. He is threatening another attack  and it springs Bill out of his depression and back on the case. He enlists his neighborhood friend, Jerome to aid him, and picks up other help along the way.

The tale that unfolds in Mr. Mercedes takes us on one heck of a ride with twists and turns that kept me up listening into the wee hours. King includes our villain Brady Hartfield’s perspective and  call me creepy but I loved getting inside his twisted mind. King’s characters are not your typical heroes and villains. They are quirky, and flawed and he quickly brings them to life as you root for them, fear for them and shiver as they cross hairs with Brady. The story was perfectly paced with moments of intense suspense, and eye-opening horror. King then weaves in humor, friendship and teamwork giving you the entire package.

Will Patton is the narrator and many of you will recognize the name from the hit show Falling Skies. He has performed in more than forty-five films and was the narrator for King’s previous novel Doctor Sleep. Patton brought the tale to a completely new level for me. I adored his voice for Jerome as well as the other cast. He made Brady’s thoughts seem real and added a creep factor that gave me shivers. His interpretation of Bill Hodges reminded me of the old dime store novels and Patton breathed life into him. As I closed my eyes, listening to Patton each character was easily identifiable, and the tale flowed seamlessly allowing me to experience that book high I constantly crave.

Fans of King and crime thrillers will find Mr. Mercedes to be stunning addition to King’s collection.This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

When I picked up Stephen King’s new novel Mr Mercedes, I felt anxious and nervous. This novel has been billed as King’s first hard-boiled detective novel and it reminded me of his past attempts at pulp fiction. Joyland was billed as a pulp novel and by all accounts it had the makings of a good dime-store novel but the end result felt like King stuck to what he does best and only paying homage to the genre. Mr Mercedes has all the hallmarks of a hard-boiled novel, a brooding and jaded detective, a femme fatale and mysterious villain but this read more like a cat and mouse suspense thriller. Don’t get me wrong, this novel is a homage to detective fiction; Philip Marlow gets a mention and a fedora even makes an appearance. Though the third person narrative and chapters focusing solely on the killer meant we are in a thriller and I had to adjust my expectations.

Bill Hodges is a retired cop with not much to do; when he was on the force he was highly decorated but now he is left alone with the thoughts of all his unsolved cases. One of those cases was the psycho-loner who ploughed down a crowd of people in a stolen Mercedes. One day Hodges receives a letter from this killer taunting him into a little game of cat and mouse. This is a high-stakes race against time; can Hodges catch the Mercedes Killer before he strikes again?

I found it interesting that Stephen King picked the fundamental character archetypes found in hard-boiled fiction, in particular to Bill Hodges, and made it his own. On the other hand the plot felt into the typical tropes found in suspense thrillers. So we have a book that is walking a fine line between homage and cliché. When it comes to hard-boiled detectives, there has been a great evolution in the genre and character archetype; it was felt a little dated to see an old white guy again. I felt it to be unnecessary, in fact I am struggling to think of any ethnicity within the book that didn’t come across as stereotypical. It was a shame because you can do so much with a hard-boiled detective and still keep him as a homage to 1940’s crime novels.

I get the impression that maybe Stephen King is the kind of writer that sticks to the tried and true methods of writing within a genre. As prolific author, I’m beginning to question if he ever takes a risk in his writing. I am not one to judge King’s work, I’ve only read a few of his books (I think five) but they all seem to follow the typical tropes found within their genres. Does he take risks?

It is starting to bug me this whole ‘old white guy’ category of novels all feature non-multicultural characters and if we do have some ethnicity, they all feel a little too stereotypical. It isn’t necessary in today’s novels; there is room to explore some diversity within a book. I won’t go into anything about feminism because I fear I would give spoilers with what I want to say but we need more strong/independent women in novels like this.

Having had a bit of a rant, I found that I’ve managed to talk about the novel and not give any spoilers. I did in fact enjoy the ride this took me on, it was predictable and typical of the genre but sometimes it is fun to go on that journey again. In fact (with the exception of On Writing) I think this is the first Stephen King novel that I have actually enjoyed. I find some parts of his other books entertaining but on a whole they do not work for me. Maybe I’ve just read the wrong King novels. Bill Hodges is returning in another two more novels and I will be picking them up and using the books as a little entertaining read when I need them.

This review originally appeared on my blog: http://literary-exploration.com/2014/08/21/mr-mercedes-by-stephen-king/

[celinenyx]

Mr. Mercedes is probably the first straight up crime book Mr King has written. (Were his Bachman books crime thrillers? I can't seem to remember.) For some reason Mr. Mercedes reminded me of The Cuckoo's Calling by J.K. Rowling; not because the books were that similar, but because they're both super-famous authors writing outside their usual genre.

On one cold morning, the Mercedes killer drove a car into a crowd. He never got caught. Retired detective Bill Hodges one day gets a letter of this Mr. Mercedes. A cat and mouse game starts, with very high stakes. But who is the cat and who the mouse?

The prologue of Mr. Mercedes was perfect. Seriously, it's one of the best pieces of written fiction I have ever read. When I told my boyfriend what happened in the prologue, he was quiet for a bit and then said "But... that's so sad!". It has such an effect even when you talk about it. The prologue reminded me once again why I adore Mr. King's writing. He has absolutely no restraint or fear for going too far, and his writing often packs a huge emotional punch.

Maybe because my hopes were sky-high by the end of the prologue, that the rest of the book just couldn't compare. It was still great, and the ending was an absolute nail-biter, but it wasn't as emotional as the prologue.

What I really liked about the story was that it all fit. At no point I was like "oh god, this is so unrealistic", as plots of well-known crime series often are. There is no magic hair in the car that leads to the killer. Neither is Bill Hodges some kind of super cop that captures the killer when his lowly other cop friends are extremely incompetent. As there are also chapters from the killer's point of view, we can see how they both make misconceptions about the other. On one hand this makes the story more believable, but on the other it can slow the plot down at times.

The ending again was perfect. There are some pretty awesome side characters in Mr. Mercedes, and they play a pivotal role in the end. Especially Holly, the middle aged mentally ill woman, I loved. She develops as a person and comes out of her shell, and it was just so well done.

I wonder if there is anything Mr. King can't write. Maybe we should challenge him to do a historical romance. But knowing him, he'll probably even make that work out.