Stephen King-Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy)

The Most Popular Bestsellers Books - Crime Novels - Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes Info, Plot Summary, Review and Stephen King Biography

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Author: Stephen King

Book: Mr. Mercedes (448 Pgs.)

Book #1 of the Bill Hodges Trilogy

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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. Immediately 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 life, occasionally considering 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 emotionally disturbed man in his late twenties had lost his father at age eight. When he was a young boy, he killed his mentally handicapped brother at his mother's prompting. He now lives and has an incestuous relationship 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' neighbors, 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 investigate 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 though his job at the electronics shop, and working on her feeling of guilt by leaving creepy sound files on her computer, which are set to go off every so often. Olivia, when hearing these sounds, believe that they are the ghosts of the victims of the Mercedes Massacre. At the funeral of Janey's (and Olivia's) ill mother, Hodges meets Janey's unpleasant relatives, among them Janey's emotionally unstable cousin Holly. After the funeral, Mr. Mercedes blows up Hodges' car, not realizing that Hodges wasn't in the car, Janey was. She 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.

Hartsfield accidentally kills his mother with a poisoned hamburger which he had prepared for Jerome's dog. With her rotting body in their house, he plans to kill himself 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 uncover 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 has a heart attack and is taken to the 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 a coma, wakes up.

Source: Wikipedia

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Stephen King: Mr. Mercedes

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Stephen King: Mr. Mercedes - Review
Reviewed by Kirkusreviews

In his latest suspenser, the prolific King (Joyland, 2013, etc.) returns to the theme of the scary car—except this one has a scary driver who’s as loony but logical unto himself as old Jack Torrance from The Shining.

It’s an utterly American setup: Over here is a line of dispirited people waiting to get into a job fair, and over there is a psycho licking his chops at the easy target they present; he aims a car into the crowd and mows down a bunch of innocents, killing eight and hurting many more. The car isn’t his. The malice most certainly is, and it’s up to world-weary ex-cop Bill Hodges to pull himself up from depression and figure out the identity of the author of that heinous act. That author offers help: He sends sometimes-taunting, sometimes–sympathy-courting notes explaining his actions. (“I must say I exceeded my own wildest expectations,” he crows in one, while in another he mourns, “I grew up in a physically and sexually abusive household.”) With a cadre of investigators in tow, Hodges sets out to avert what is certain to be an even greater trauma, for the object of his cat-and-mouse quest has much larger ambitions, this time involving a fireworks show worthy of Fight Club. And that’s not his only crime: He's illegally downloaded “the whole Anarchist Cookbook from BitTorrent,” and copyright theft just may be the ultimate evil in the King moral universe. King’s familiar themes are all here: There's craziness in spades and plenty of alcohol and even a carnival, King being perhaps the most accomplished coulrophobe at work today. The storyline is vintage King, too: In the battle of good and evil, good may prevail—but never before evil has caused a whole lot of mayhem.

The scariest thing of all is to imagine King writing a happy children’s book. This isn’t it: It’s nicely dark, never predictable and altogether entertaining.

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