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

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!!!!!

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!!!!!

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.

Great quality, haven’t got a chance to read it yet but really nice book!

Great quality, haven’t got a chance to read it yet but really nice book!

Typical King!!! Fantastic read. I couldn’t put it down.. Kept me up all night, couldn’t put it down. A must read…

Book Review: Mr Mercedes by Stephen King, People are gathered in the early morning fog at a job fair event, waiting for the doors to open in a few hours. While they wait, a man in a stolen gray Mercedes runs over many of these waiting people, killing several and injuring many. Detective Hodges who has worked on the case eventually retires a while after no one finds who the perp is, but after receiving a note in his mail slot from the Mercedes Killer he decides to begin investigating on his own again to find this “Mr Mercedes”. With the help of tech-savvy 17-year-old Jerome and a couple of other people along the way, will Det-Ret Hodges find Mr Mercedes before something else devastating happens, or will many more people die?, This book is a total adventure. It had me on the edge of my seat and I read it all within about 24 hours because I couldn’t put it down. I kept wondering if Mr Mercedes would do this or do that. Throughout the book, I knew who Mr Mercedes is but Det-Ret Hodges did not so he had to follow many clues to find who it was and to nab him and stop him. This is the first book in a trilogy. I definitely give this book ! Check it out and happy reading!!

Book Review: Mr Mercedes by Stephen King, People are gathered in the early morning fog at a job fair event, waiting for the doors to open in a few hours. While they wait, a man in a stolen gray Mercedes runs over many of these waiting people, killing several and injuring many. Detective Hodges who has worked on the case eventually retires a while after no one finds who the perp is, but after receiving a note in his mail slot from the Mercedes Killer he decides to begin investigating on his own again to find this “Mr Mercedes”. With the help of tech-savvy 17-year-old Jerome and a couple of other people along the way, will Det-Ret Hodges find Mr Mercedes before something else devastating happens, or will many more people die?, This book is a total adventure. It had me on the edge of my seat and I read it all within about 24 hours because I couldn’t put it down. I kept wondering if Mr Mercedes would do this or do that. Throughout the book, I knew who Mr Mercedes is but Det-Ret Hodges did not so he had to follow many clues to find who it was and to nab him and stop him. This is the first book in a trilogy. I definitely give this book ! Check it out and happy reading!!