An update on Mr King’s Mr Mercedes

Two ladies in the winner’s circle and it’s just the 5th! I cannot tell you how happy this makes me– though I am lagging behind with a limp 🙂 Well done, Kate and Teri– you are certainly making me stay inspired to finish my last few hundred pages. So, thank you for being here– it helps.

Mr Mercedes is coming along– I am about 75 pages in which as we all know isn’t much for Mr King. The premise of the story is the following:

During a job fair at City Center — the timing is during the Great Recession, folks were really looking for work– in the story a nearby factory had been shutdown recently, so many people are hungry for employment. People are lined up ultra early in the morning and Mr Mercedes, the criminal at large, drives a stolen Mercedes into the crowd killing 8 people and driving away.

Ret. Det. (Retired Detective) Hodges– Kermit aka Billy — is bored and depressed since he’s left the force. He’s gaining weight, eating poorly, and watching crappy TV. He has a gun that he plays with often — I think his dad gave it to him. He’s even put in his mouth once or twice to see how that feels. Weird. So weird to me. Suicide rates among retired law enforcement are high —

Hodges gets a long letter from Mr Mercedes where MM essentially encourages Hodges to get the job done and kill himself. He also writes about how much he enjoyed driving this deathcar into a crowd. It’s very juvenile the whole letter, to be honest. He swears he’s never going to do it again– that his appetite for murder has been fulfilled.

Hodges grabs lunch with his old partner, Pete, and tries to feel out if there’s any no info on MM, since the case is still open. The event only happened a few months prior to Hodges receiving the letter.

At this point, there is a lot of back story– re-telling the original investigation as a memory of Hodges. They talk about the owner of the Mercedes, an older woman who probably left the key in the ignition but will not admit in– in fact, genuinely believes it’s impossible. She’s a wealthy old lady, and there’s a lot of shit-talk about that from the cops, too.

This book was published in 2014, making for lots of commentary that is quite current– I don’t usually read things this contemporary and I am enjoying it. As I mentioned before, this is part pleasure part literary investigation, and I must admit I do enjoy the humor King brings to his writing– the irony is pretty dang fresh.

I don’t like murder and I’m not a fan of the Mercedes Killer (there is one line where he admits he killed his brother, though he says it was his mother’s idea!), but I am looking forward to seeing where the story goes.