Mr. Mercedes

Mr. Mercedes

First edition cover
Author	Stephen King
Language	English
Genre	Crime fiction
Published	June 3, 2014 (Scribner)
Publication place	USA
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	448
ISBN	978-1-4767-5445-1
Followed by	Finders Keepers

Mr. Mercedes is a novel by Stephen King. He calls it his first hard-boiled detective book. It was published on June 3, 2014. On June 10, 2014 the author described Mr. Mercedes on Twitter as the first volume of a projected trilogy, to be followed in the first half of 2015 by Finders Keepers, the first draft of which was finished around the time Mr. Mercedes was published.

Background information

During his Chancellor's Speaker Series talk at University of Massachusetts Lowell on December 7, 2012, King indicated that he was writing a crime novel about a retired policeman being taunted by a murderer. With a working title Mr. Mercedes and inspired by a true event about a woman driving her car into a McDonald's restaurant, it was originally meant to be a short story just a few pages long. In an interview with Parade, published May 26, 2013, King confirmed that the novel was "more or less" completed. Describing the novel for an interview with USA Today, published on September 18, 2013, King said that while it was started prior to the Boston Marathon bombings, Mr. Mercedes involves a terrorist plot which is "too creepily close for comfort". An excerpt was published in the May 16, 2014 issue of Entertainment Weekly.

Synopsis

The novel starts with a scene in which jobless people stand in line for a job fair, when a Mercedes rides into the crowd and kills eight people and injures many severely. Immediatley after that the protagonist is introduced, Bill Hodges, a former police detective retired for six months. He is divorced, lonely and fed up with his live, he thinks of suicide. Suddenly he receives a letter signed by a Mr. Mercedes who claims to be the Mercedes killer. The incident had taken place at the end of Hodges' career and was still unresolved when he retired. Mr. Mercedes knows details of the murder and also mentions Olivia Trelawney, from whom he had stolen the Mercedes; she committed suicide soon after. Hodges is intrigued and starts to investigate the case, instead of turning the letter to his former police colleague, Pete Huntley.

A new perspective in the novel opens with the introduction of Brady Hartsfield, the Mercedes killer. It is revealed that this emotionallydisturbed man in his late twenties had lost his father at age eight, lives with his alcoholic mother and works in an electronics shop and as an ice cream seller. Riding in a van, this second job enables him to observe Hodges and Hodges' neighbours, among them seventeen year old Jerome Robinson, who does little chores for Hodges.

During his research about the wealthy Olivia Trelawney, Hodges meets her sister Janey who hires him to examinate Olivia's suicide and the stealing of the Mercedes. They become a couple. Hodges finds out, with the help of bright and computer savvy Jerome, how Mr. Mercedes had stolen the car, and that he had driven her to suicide by making contact with her and working on her feeling of guilt. At the funeral of Janey's (and Olivia's) ill mother, Hodges meets Janey's unpleasant relatives, among them Janey's freakish cousin Holly. After the funeral, Mr. Mercedes blows up Hodges' car; accidently, only Janey has been in it and is killed. Hodges feels remorse, but becomes even more eager to solve the case without the help of the police. Holly joins Hodges and Jerome in the investigation.

Brady Hartsfield, Mr. Mercedes, also accidently kills his mother with a poisened hamburger which he had prepared for Jerome's dog. With her rotting body in their house, he plans to terminate his life by blowing himself up at a giant concert for young girls; the concert will be attended by Jerome's mother and little sister. Hodges, Jerome and Holly manage to reveal Brady's real identity and search his computer hard drives. As they suspect a different location to be Mr. Mercedes target, they come late to the concert, but not too late. While Hodges gets a coronary attack and is brought to hospital, Jerome and Holly succeed in preventing Brady from detonating his explosives.

In the epilogue, Jerome and Holly are rewarded with the medal of the city; Hodges is lucky not to be charged for his irresponsible conduct. Brady, who had been beaten by Holly into coma, wakes up.

Reception

Mr. Mercedes had good reviews, with many critics responding positively to the book being different from King's "standard horror stories" and being a "compelling crime novel." It received a 4.07/5 score on Goodreads, dropping to 3.89 as of 9 July with 10,452 ratings and a 4/5 on Barnes & Noble.

Michael Marshall Smith of The Guardian noted the novel "is firmly positioned in suspense-thriller territory and the non-supernatural world – somewhere King evidently feels increasingly at home. … At its heart, Mr Mercedes is a traditional cat-and-mouse story about a psychopathic killer and the renegade cop who makes it his mission to bring him down." Considering three levels of evaluation – quality per se, expectations of King's "readers who return for his distinctively unstoppable storytelling engine, his particular and hugely dependable voice", and rules of "whichever genre" King increasingly departs to, he sums up: "Good book? Hell, yes. Good Stephen King book? Absolutely." Brian Truitt of USA Today gave the novel 3 and 1/2 stars: "With an accidental gumshoe and a freaky serial killer, … Mr. Mercedes takes the old detective genre in an excellent, modern direction". He commended "a fascinating look at what makes a serial killer in a post-9/11 context", adding that King also "really succeeds with Hodges' companions". Sheryll Connelly of The New York Daily News stated the novel is "telling a story that could almost be characterized as sweet except of course for the sociopath on a bloody rampage. King will be King, and he’s never less than scary. Who in their right mind would want him to be?" and noted that this is one of his books where instead of it being "horrific, King expresses outright tenderness and it’s evident here."

Tasha Robinson of The AV Club was more reserved, writing that the novel opens with its best moment and "sags significantly in the middle, but it barrels toward a memorable conclusion … his tense, propulsive, ultra-fast-paced climax here seems like it was written with the movie in mind". Her main complaint was "a collection of laughably creaky old tropes at the center … a halfhearted stop at Señor Lazy’s Bargain Cliché Bin … predictable King-isms … a cutout character following a well-worn path". But she praised the novel for being "unusual in its dedication to surprising readers" and found it "a major step up from his previous book, Doctor Sleep".