Fiction Review: Mr. Mercedes

After reading Stephen King's The Outsider last fall (and loving it), I realized that one of my favorite characters, the quirky, awkward Holly Gibney, was also featured in his Bill Hodges trilogy, so I took advantage of my Big Book Summer Challenge (Stephen King books are almost always Big Books!) to read the first book in the trilogy, Mr. Mercedes, which won an Edgar Award for Best Novel. I can always count on King's novels for a fast-paced, suspenseful ride, and this one delivered.

As the novel opens, retired detective Bill Hodges is rotting away in his recliner in an Ohio city. Retirement doesn't suit Hodges, who is divorced and rarely sees his adult daughter. He's bored, feeling like he's outlived his useful life, and even taking his father's gun out of its drawer and staring at it, thinking of the possibilities. Then, he receives an unusual letter in the mail, signed The Mercedes Killer. This refers back to a case left unsolved, one that has bothered Hodges for years: a huge 12-cylinder Mercedes was driven into a tight crowd waiting for a job fair, killing eight and leaving more wounded. The killer got away, though aspects of this unsolvable crime have nagged at Hodges ever since. Now, he's received a long, taunting letter from someone claiming to be the perp (though the letter-writer miswrites it as perk) that Hodges just can't ignore. Retired cops are not supposed to go off solving crimes on their own, but suddenly, Hodges feels alive again. He'll just investigate a few loose ends and clues unwittingly left in the letter and then turn it over to his old partner. But--you guessed it--the deeper he gets into the case, the harder it is to let go. Hodges engages the help of the very smart, computer-savvy teen boy, Jerome, who helps with his yardwork, and eventually, Holly appears on the scene as a highly unlikely third partner. As they close in on the identity of the Mercedes killer, the danger grows, both for them personally and for the city. Will he strike again, with something even deadlier?

As is typical for King's novels, the tension here is off the charts, right from the start. It sounds cliche, but King really does make me stay up way past my bedtime, flipping pages, thinking "just one more chapter." Hodges is a curmudgeonly but likable guy, Jerome is clever and entertaining, and Holly is just as quirky and fun as she was in The Outsider (more so here, as you can see her break out of her shell and come to life in the presence of Bill). Both she and Bill are given a new sense of purpose in their lives in tracking down the killer (Holly has a personal reason for wanting to find him). King's dialogue and details add realism and interest, as always. This is not a horror or supernatural story, as many of his are, but a straight-up mystery/crime thriller with super-fast pacing and almost unbearable suspense. I loved every page, and now I can't wait to read the next book of Bill and Holly's adventures, Finders Keepers.

436 pages, Gallery Books

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