Mr. Mercedes
Stephen King, 2014
Mystery, thriller & crime HorrorContemporary fiction
A retired detective is drawn into a taunting game with the killer who drove a stolen Mercedes into a crowd. A grim cat-and-mouse story told in plain, steady prose, with dread gathering under the ordinary police work and a killer’s cold philosophy pressing in.
Feels like dread and serenity. About morality and society.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy detective procedurals with a retired cop, a taunting adversary and King's darker edge. The killer's nihilistic rants and the grim premise make some stretches bleak and heavy.
Why read it
It offers a tense, morally serious crime story about ordinary people facing a killer who wants to be noticed, and it moves with King's plain storytelling drive.
A page from the book
A belief system built out of certainty and dust.
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. Stephen King.Stephen King published Mr. Mercedes in 2014, his first hard-boiled detective novel after decades of horror.
Books that feel like this
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The Stand
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A flu escapes a lab and empties America; survivors choose between a saintly old woman and a smiling dark man. King's big, bleak, compulsive plague epic.
Pet Sematary
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A doctor moves his family to a Maine town where the local pet cemetery sits beside something older, and grief becomes a door that should stay shut.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Mr. Mercedes for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy detective procedurals with a retired cop, a taunting adversary and King's darker edge. The killer's nihilistic rants and the grim premise make some stretches bleak and heavy.
- What is Mr. Mercedes like?
- A grim cat-and-mouse story told in plain, steady prose, with dread gathering under the ordinary police work and a killer’s cold philosophy pressing in. Feels like dread and serenity. About morality and society.
- What should I read after Mr. Mercedes?
- If you liked Mr. Mercedes, try The Plague (Albert Camus), Sycamore Row (John Grisham) and A Monster Calls (Patrick Ness).
A taste of the feed
The simplest fact can become a capital offense.
There always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that 2+2=4 is punished by death. And the issue is not what reward or what punishment will be the outcome of that reasoning. The issue is simply whether or not 2+2=4.
The Plague · Albert Camus
What we talk about when we can't explain a death.
They found Seth Hubbard in the general area where he had promised to be, though not exactly in the condition expected. He was at the end of a rope, six feet off the ground and twisting slightly in the wind. A front was moving through and Seth was soaked when they found him, not that it mattered. Someone would point out that there was no mud on his shoes and no tracks below him, so therefore he was probably hanging and dead when the rain began. Why was that important? Ultimately, it was not.
Sycamore Row · John Grisham
The particular loneliness of being looked past, not looked at.
There was once an invisible man who had grown tired of being unseen. It was not that he was actually invisible. It was that people had become used to not seeing him. And if no one sees you, are you really there at all?"
A Monster Calls · Patrick Ness
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