BOOKS: Mr. Mercedes

I want my mother!

Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King

 

    Stephen King is an author I hold near-and-dear to my heart. He was the first, "adult" author, I ever read. Goosebumps and Choose Your Own Adventure were fine for a while, but eventually I needed something more. Oddly enough, the first King book I ever got was On Writing, which is a half-memoir/half-writing tips. I was aware of who Stephen King was at this point (I was probably thirteen at the time), but I didn't know very much about him. After reading through, and enjoying On Writing (so many swears! My thirteen-year-old self was at first shocked, then absolutely delighted), I decided it was time for some big boys. My first real novel by King was The Shining. Suffice to say, I was blown away. That hooked me on reading (and specifically, reading his novels). After The Shining, I read It, and from there, I don't really remember the order. I've read at least thirty of his books by now, just a few months away from my 27th birthday. What in the world does this rambling have to do with this book I recently finished? Absolutely nothing, besides to illustrate how much King means to me. He (via his On Writing book) influenced me to start taking writing seriously (which I still do, BARELY), and he really gave me a huge love/appreciation for horror. I've been reading a lot of sci-fi lately, but I can always come back to King.

This book has a great, disturbing dust jacket

    This is Mr. King's most recent fare (as of 8/16/14), and I got it for free, as a matter of fact. A local record shop near me, Bullmoose Music, moved their store and had a grand re-opening. I won a free book voucher, and I grabbed this. This is classic King, yet it's also somewhat of a departure. I know he's been pigeonholed as a "horror writer", but he's written many things that don't come close to that. This book has no traces of horror, supernatural, sci-fi, anything like that. It's essentially a crime story, and even then it has some cliche parts to it. It's got a disgustingly maladjusted killer with mommy issues; an ex-cop contemplating suicide; killer sending taunting letters to people. However, I enjoy the way King writes and narrates, and I wasn't too bothered by that stuff.
    There's a potentially much larger issue with the book, one that I had read beforehand on a Goodreads review, so I tried to keep conscious of it throughout. Without spoiling much, essentially the main character (retired detective Bill Hodges) withholds large amounts of evidence from his old police buddy, and in turn goes after the killer himself (with a misfit crew towards the end). The review I read stated that this was a book-breaking piece of information. If Hodges had just given his information straight to the cops, the reviewer posits, the killer would have been apprehended before other tragic events in the book take place. Does that make sense? I was aware of this piece of information, but it didn't bother me that much. Hodges has just enough justification to keep the police out of his private, and illegal, investigation, as far as I'm concerned.
    Okay, besides the cliche cop stuff, and the "withholding vital information" bit, the final thing that slightly bugged me about this book is the antagonist, the titular, "Mr. Mercedes". His name is Brady (that's hardly a spoiler, it says that right on the inside flap), and he's as vile a villain as King has ever come up with. Besides the fact that he murders several people in the book, he comes off as very unlikeable. Obviously, right, I mean, he is the bad guy? But he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He's a psychopath, through and through. And a damn racist one, at that. Any prospective readers, let me tell you now, if you are offended by the, "n-word" (or other vulgar racist slang), I would not read this book. Maybe not liking the antagonist of a book is a silly qualm to have, but King has made better villains. Brady works as a horrible killer, and nothing more.

Back cover. Creepy as all get-out

    Overall, I enjoyed my time with this book. Perhaps I mis-spoke (mis-typed?) above when I said this was, "classic King". What I meant was, I could tell this was a Stephen King book. Despite the fact that there is almost no violence/gore -- I love the way King talks about, and describes, gore. He's very good at it -- whatsoever (except the very first chapter, the middle, and one scene towards the end), King's casual narrative and great dialogue are still here. There's no horror aspects, as stated, but it's still right in King's ballpark. I'm a bit of a King honk, so I can enjoy his works that others don't like (Tommyknockers still sucks though), so take my opinions for what they are. Most of the characters are likable and unique, the whole story moves fast, there's some action, and a bit of mystery. I don't know how much of this book I'll remember in six months or a year, but there was one chapter that I remember thinking, I cannot wait for this chapter to be over. I don't want to read this anymore. Despite how it sounds, that's actually a compliment. It was just such a disturbing account of a broken family with mental health issues, and how those issues were ultimately dealt with, that was heartbreaking and fairly sickening. This chapter will stay with me for a while, at least.
    I have read a fare amount of King's new material since 2011: besides this, I very recently read Joyland (his second Hard Case Crime novel, and the amusement park in the book was inspired by an amusement park that is five minutes down the road from my work!), which I thought was fabulous, and I read 11/22/63 a few years back, and that was a great read as well. This book is probably my least favorite of his newer books (have yet to read Wind Through the Keyhole or Doctor Sleep), but I would still recommend it to King fans, and I guess to crime fans as well. I'm not sure where else to put this, but there is a fair amount (okay, more than fair) of computer-related stuff in this book (private chat sites, voice-controls for computers, hidden files, computer whiz-kids, etc.), and maybe it's just me, but I always find it weird when Uncle Stevie talks technology. Like, it sorta comes off to me like he is too old to be talking about computers and video games and the like. I know that obviously isn't true, but for whatever reason, it's like my mom trying to tell me about technology.
     I feel this is my most disjointed, rambling book post yet. I'm sorry for that, and if it comes off as even more amateur-ish than my other posts, well, whaddya gonna do? I'm still trying to find my footing with this blog writing. I'm stupidly self-conscious about these, and I constantly think to myself, "man, no one will want to read these, or if they do, they won't take them seriously". It's pretty dumb, because I'm not trying to be a professional blogger or journalist. I'm just a guy that loves writing about stuff. I'm doing this for me. And I have my own style, for better or worse. Anyway, thanks for reading this! Should have another book post (back to sci-fi) up in the next two weeks. Hell, if everything breaks the way I want, I could potentially have EIGHT blog posts up in the next month-or-so. Enjoy!

P.S. Stephen, why does the Under the Dome TV show SUCK SO MUCH?

I would recommend this book to King fans, and maybe crime fans might enjoy this. It's not perfect, but it's still King, and still great to read his new work

Looks great on a shelf!