A departure for Stephen King in a sense that he branches into different genre - worth mentioning, considering he is a highly successful writer who made a name for himself as unsurpassed master of horror and for some four decades nobody came even close to his throne. Unlike some authors who can't escape being pigeonholed in certain boxes (yes, Dan Brown, I am looking at you) King has followed his inspiration and occasionally enjoyed excursions into fantasy genre but this is to my knowledge first time he actually went head on into good, old fashioned detective story. I have read perhaps a dozen Stephen King's novels in my life - loved some ("The Shining", "'Salem's Lot", "Carrie", "Desperation"), was not exactly bowled by others, but must admit he always had a unique style and knows how to hold firmly at readers attention from the very first page. He also has somewhat intimidatingly large bibliography, lots of sequels and short story collections so it puts me off sometimes but bravely I go from time to time, always understanding that in this lifetime I probably won't manage absolutely everything he ever wrote - but that's fine as I always need a break from his novels, because he can be psychologically exhausting.
"Mr.Mercedes" is about sociopath mass murderer who loved the thrill of killing a group of absolutely random, innocent people with stolen car and now he plays the game of cat and mouse with retired detective Bill Hodges who decided to quietly do his own research without any help from police or colleagues. The wealthy woman who owned the stolen car was driven to suicide with apparent guilt, but Hodges discovers that police might have been wrong by dismissing her quickly as irritating, nasty person because killer might have later slowly push her towards the madness. Trough the story we follow simultaneously what's happening with detective Hodges and killer who on his side gloats trough e-mail communication with detective and plans another mass killings. There are several characters who eventually become very important and in fact help detective to solve the case, which King connects neatly and he definitely knows how to built a suspense. Contrary to usual fault that I previously found with King, this time there were no big explosions at the end (sometimes he just burns everything and that's it folks), this time big finale comes in the middle of some big concert but it ends just fine, in fact its almost happy end and main characters are all fine and changed for better.
In all honesty, its actually not exactly neither very special or memorable little thriller, it has recognisable authors traits and he is at his best when describing killers inner state of mind (he was always good at this), at certain moments I even felt little bit compassion for killer who had such sordid life with no love, friends or positive emotions in his life that he completely turned to a dark side, while outwardly living completely anonymous life. It makes you wonder would he perhaps turn into different person if only there was somebody to embrace him or give him support from time to time. He does fit perfectly into psychological profile of typical mass murderer and King knows it - we hardly ever really pay attention to people around us, specially if someone makes conscious effort not to be noticed. Some of killer's/authors thoughts were still very interesting:
"Every religion lies. Every moral precept is a delusion. Even the stars are a mirage. The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That’s all history is, after all: scar tissue."
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