Book Title: Mr. Mercedes
Author: Stephen King
Genre: Thriller
Page Count: 437
Started/Ended Date: March 16 – March 20
Total Reading Time: 8 hours 23 minutes

In the predawn hours, in a distressed American city, hundreds of unemployed men and women line up for the opening of a job fair. They are tired and cold and desperate. Emerging from the fog, invisible until it is too late, 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.

Months later, an ex-cop named Bill Hodges, still haunted by the unsolved crime, contemplates suicide. When he gets a crazed letter from “the perk,” claiming credit for the murders, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, fearing another even more diabolical attack and hell-bent on preventing it.

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 eccentric and mismatched 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 been a Stephen King fan for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure which King book was my first, but he wrote my favorite book of all time, 11/22/63. I really enjoyed this book. It was all set in real life with no supernatural aspects, which I appreciated. Not to say that I don’t love a supernatural Stephen King book, 11/22/63 is about time travel so I obviously enjoy those as well. But my issue with some of his supernatural stories is that he tries to explain the supernatural logically or scientifically and that just makes for a disappointing ending for me. (Case in point – Under the Dome‘s ending ruined it for me).

But this is not a review on all of Stephen King’s work, this is a review on Mr. Mercedes. I really have nothing bad to say about this book. The characters felt very real and well-rounded, the storyline was interesting, and the execution was great. I was concerned that I had read this series or maybe one of the books before, though, because the name Holly Gibney seemed so familiar to me. After some research, I realized that Holly is also the main character in The Outsider as well as in a short story in If It Bleeds. You almost had me, Stephen!

What did you think of this book? Let me know in the comments!