#PBwkendread Review: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
Title: Mr. MercedesPublished: Jan. 6, 2015
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pages: 448
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Review: Library book
Buy Links: Amazon, Amazon.uk
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.
Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under the wheels of the Mercedes, and he wants that rush again.
Only Bill Hodges, with a couple of highly unlikely allies, can apprehend the killer before he strikes again. And they have no time to lose, because Brady’s next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim thousands.
Mr. Mercedes is a war between good and evil, from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.
I have heard so much about this book that when I saw it in my library I knew I had to check it out. It has been a few years since I last read a book from Stephen King. It took me a while to get into this book and I am not quite sure why. I love this authors writing and his ability to bring you story like no other but it took me until about 200 pages into the book before it started to turn good for.
This story starts off where a crowd of people get ran over by a Mercedes this killer was never caught. One of the officers whose case it was has retired and still thinks about the crime from time to time. All that changes when Bill receives a letter from the suppose killer, the investigating itch is back for Bill and he is now more than ever determined to catch this killer.
It seems there is a lot of cat and mousing going on within this story between the killer and Bill and when you find out who the killer is, it makes you really think that some killers are just killers in plain sight. Which is kind of scary.
Will Bill be able to close the case? Who all will be affected by the actions of Bill when he takes this mission to capture the killer without the help of law enforcement?
We actually get into the mind of the killer and I liked to see how he worked and where he was going with things. I think the author did a great job with the "bad" guy and how he was portrayed.
There is a pretty cool scene that deals with hamburger meat I am just going to leave that there as I was just like OMG OMG WHAT!!!
Now the way this story ended has me wondering if these characters will be in the next story or do we get a new case? I guess I shall pick up book two and find out. I just hope that I get more into the story quicker with book two than I did with this one.
#PBwkendred
Stephen Edwin King was born the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his father left them when Stephen was two, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of them. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.
Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.
He met Tabitha Spruce in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University, where they both worked as students; they married in January of 1971. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.
Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many were gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.
In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching English at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.
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