Ellen’s Pick of the Week: Mystery-Thriller series by Stephen King

Bill Hodges has recently retired from a long career as a highly decorated police detective and to say that retirement doesn’t agree with him would be quite an understatement.  So when someone claiming to be the Mercedes Killer, the one big case he never cracked, contacts him, he feels he must follow the trail. The book becomes an intense race to see if Hodges and his unlikely partners can stop the killer before he kills again, and this reader was riveted until the very last chapter.

I used to love Stephen King’s books back in the 1970s, but had stopped as they got scarier and frankly, less well-written. King is back and at the top of his game in this book. His characters stood up from their pages and inhabited my waking moments. When I was finished, right away I had to read the next book , Finders Keepers, because I’d become so fond of them and had to see what they were up to next. Although Stephen King is best known for writing horror, Mr. Mercedes (and its sequel Finders Keepers) are murder mystery-thrillers that kept me wishing I had a longer commute to work. I listened to the audiobooks narrated by Will Patton and they are some of the best I’ve heard in my many years of listening to books.

But wait–there’s more! I just discovered that there will be a third book in the Bill Hodges trilogy released in June of 2016 entitled End of Watch featuring the same wonderful, quirky characters and at least one of the really bad guys (I hope he’ll finally be defeated!)  You can be sure that I’ll be on the waiting list for this audiobook!

So if you’re looking for a well-written page-turner with vivid characters matching wits in an epic battle of good vs. evil, I highly recommend Mr. Mercedes (read it first!) and Finders Keepers by Stephen King.