Mr. Mercedes ~ Book Review
by Stephen King
2014, Hardback — straight Mystery!, serial killer
Tagline: Someone needs an editor…🎶
OMGoodness. I am shook. For decades, I have been depending on Stephen King to take away the pain of living.
That stops now.
I really did like our lead, however. Bill Hodges, recently retired police detective, lives in some town in the midwest. He’s a little depressed — maybe a lot depressed — living alone, job over, ex-wife gone, only TV left.
Hey, I know! What if a killer – a serial killer – taunts him about the case he never solved: the Mercedes Killer? (The killer had plowed the car into a line of job-seekers, 2 of whom we got to know briefly.) Bill immediately cheers up with this challenge and goes to work on figuring out this nutcase.
He refuses to ask his own police department for help, (why?) and adopts a neighboring teen handyman, Jerome, who is good with computers, as his “cop buddy.” Jerome’s tech ability is fortuitous, as the killer wants to communicate in a chat room, and Bill is strangely lacking in tech skills. (In 2009? Was the internet really so unknown back then?)
We learn who the killer is almost immediately. Brady is a millenial who has 2 lower-rung jobs and lives with his mother. I have been watching Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer story (it’s great) concurrently with the book, and I have to say, in some ways Brady is just as delightfully zany as Dahmer! And Brady is not the by-the-book FBI profile killer we’ve memorized by now…and that part is fun, too.
Out knocking on doors, like detectives do, Bill meets a comely young lady, Janey, and there are sparks. Here’s where the dialogue – and the sex, such as it was – fell short for me. Awk-ward!
So let’s blow past that to look at the big picture. This is a straight up mystery. Nothing magical or typical Stephen King here. The detective must solve the mystery and catch the killer.
King said in interviews that this is his first “hard-boiled detective” book. I say, Turn back, young man. Ex-police Bill Hodges is not such a compelling detective. The killer is fascinating, however, and I wonder if that’s why this doesn’t work for me: upside-down protagonist and villain!
Particulate Matters
- King goes to some length (and repetition) to assure us that Jerome, his teenage gardener/computer whiz/cop buddy, who happens to be black, is also so smart, he’s going to an Ivy league college. Um, the Civil Rights Act was over 50 years ago. Why would this be unusual, or of note?
- Holly is described as an emotionally disturbed oddball…who is also very good at technology, and quite capable when persuing a serial killer. But I found her self-hatred and depression unappealing.
- And one reason why Stephen King needs an editor: in the story, an older person dies naturally. No mystery, not killed. Yet we have to get all the details of planning a funeral! Not only that, drag your new lover of 2 days in, to help deal with it. How romantic. Take out this whole bit, Mr. King!
- Over the years, I have started to see the C word crop up in King’s books, unfortunately. Does he hate women? Afraid of them? So far, this is the worst novel — he uses it 4 times!! Again, Stephen, GET AN EDITOR!
Ending of Mr Mercedes (SPOILERS!)
Was there really any surprise in the last 100 pages? The pacing hit a brick wall. We know what killer Brady is planning to do: carry dynamite into an arena of several thousand people. We also know he won’t succeed with his terrorist act, because King isn’t going to allow him to kill that many! So Brady has to be killed or disarmed. Ba-da-dum.
Brady almost dies when Holly bashes his skull in. (Jerome is underage, plus he’s a POC, so it would look bad if he did it). But it looks like Brady lives to see another day. I was a teensy bit happy, I admit.
Media Mentions of Mr. Mercedes
I was flabbergasted to discover that not only was this novel well-received by critics (which I kind of expected) but King turned it into a trilogy, and even an Amazon TV series!!
New York Times ~~ not surprising, I guess, the NY Times writes the whole review about his hat – a fedora. They also say Bill Hodges is not the real detective – weirdo Holly is.
The Guardian ~~
There is nothing paranormal about Mr Mercedes, his 57th novel. It’s a good old-fashioned, race-against-time thriller with all the favourite tropes of the genre lined up…
The economic decline of America’s industrial cities infects the atmosphere of the novel but is never really brought to the fore in the way the initial symbolism implied.
Well, written in England. The “economic decline of American cities” (and this isn’t even a big city) is not a main thrust of Stephen King, so, no.
Kirkus ~~
I need to interrupt our previously scheduled programming to say that Kirkus is ignoring California privacy laws.
If you would like to delete your personally identifying information from Kirkus Media LLC, you may do so by emailing the request to customercare@kirkus.com. Without the request of deletion, you give Kirkus Media LLC explicit consent to retain your personally identifying data indefinitely.
I emailed them, with no response yet.
Back to their book review:
From the Bill Hodges Trilogy series, Vol 1. There’s craziness in spades and plenty of alcohol and even a carnival, King being perhaps the most accomplished coulrophobe at work today.
There’s very little alcohol, and I don’t recall a carnival. Weird. But only 3 stars, so…she didn’t love it.
Amazon readers:
From A Vine Voice (always take Vine voices with a grain of salt, since they get the book free and sometimes over-praise or analyze.)
Stephen King is thus in line with some of the books he has written before, though this one is original because it uses an ex-cop, a retired detective as the main character though Stephen King adds to this man an underage high school student and a psychologically deranged middle age woman who is somewhere between neurosis, psychosis and autism, definitely compulsive obsessive and yet sane enough to be of great help and to manage to get out of the super low state of mind and extreme dependence she is in at the beginning and reach some independence and equilibrium at the end.
“Good read”
It starts out good but I’m not finished.
I like that there are two protagonists in a sense. Hodges wants to catch the killer for many reasons including selfish ones. Brady wants to kill as many people as possible because life sucks.If there is something to dislike about it, I would probably say that it’s the trope of the old dinosaur detective who is technologically-challenged and maybe fat.
No reading happens in a vacuum
I’m still battened down in a rented room in a condo in North Hollywood. The sun is now slanted such that there is only a bit of it in our small patio, and in my room, even less. I need strong entertainment.
I was fully engaged while getting to know the characters, but the obvious ending made me put it down for a while and start a couple of other books. I had to force myself to finish it, tbh.
Try mr mercedes with…
The book cover has a teeny-tiny little smiley sticker on the umbrella. Smileys were still popular in 2010, I guess? Certainly not with most serial killers, but Brady was playing a game. For your enjoyment, dear reader, I picked food stickers, since when we meet him, Bill Hodges was eating a lot of fast food. 🙂
A lot of the book is about a pretend boy band playing in the town’s concert hall. Instead, I recommend The Greek Theater, in LA, way cool.
And, finally, another quirky thing about our killer is that Brady drives an ice cream truck. The best ice cream in Los Angeles is McConnell’s Fine Ice Cream. Based in Santa Barbara, we’re lucky you can also find it in Whole Foods or Amazon.
McConnells uses real cream and flavorings. No cheating. My favorite is Peppermint Stick – so creamy, with just a bite of peppermint. I also like Sweet Cream and Brownie. Great blending!
Final Book Review Our Score
I gave it 2 stars. I would have given him less, but King is still a favorite author.
I enjoyed getting to see Bill meet his neighbors and victims, and the scathing emails between Bill and Brady. But for me, the ending lost momentum, and I had to take a break and make myself finish the book.
Would this Book make a good movie?
Too late. They already made a TV series out of it! I don’t think movies do serial killers justice, because the nuances, precipitating events, and motivations can’t be fleshed (!) out. But this book has that diverse, defined cast that producers like, and the King name, so, yes, movie-worthy.
What did you think of it?
Where to find
Your friendly local library. Free!
Powell’s – Largest Indie bookstore
ebay – fun for lot by topic
Amazon – fast
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5445-1
Set painter in studio Art Depts. Member Scriptwriters Network, script analyst.
Author, 2 hardcopy books, Barnes & Noble Calendar.
- Emma in the Night ~ Wendy Walker ~ Thriller - May 11, 2023
- Still Alice (2014) ~ Psychology Movie Review ~ Julianne Moore - January 25, 2023
- The Other Emily ~ Dean Koontz - January 23, 2023
