About seven years have passed since Brady Hartsfield maliciously ran over people waiting for a job fair with a stolen Mercedes. For most of that time he's been in the traumatic brain injury wing of Kiner Memorial Hospital due to getting walloped by Hodges' partner Holly Gibney at the scene of his subsequent attempt at mass murder. Now the presumably brain-dead Brady seems to be inducing a number of suicides, and the same defunct video game system is found near each victim.
Soon after the first suicide is discovered, Bill Hodges, now in his late 60s, gets diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer. Now he's facing a supernatural killer at the same time as being faced with his own mortality. Jerome's sister Barbara almost gets herself run over while using a Zappit. A particular demo screen on the handheld game consoles has a hypnotizing effect on the player, which is a surefire metaphor for how our mobile devices suck us in. Brady has found a way to modify the game's qualities so that someone's mind becomes vulnerable enough for him to invade it, so he's able to control a body that isn't paralyzed like his own.
This series had not used supernatural elements up to now, but the mind control is brought up gradually. The first few times the reader encounters the characters that Brady is controlling such as Dr. Felix Babineau and Al "Library Al" Brooks, they just seem to be oddly loyal to him or brainwashed. But soon they start acting or speaking like the maniac we got to know uncomfortably well in Mr. Mercedes. This is a testament to King's storytelling prowess; any time a situation is joined in media res and doesn't completely make sense, just keep reading and it will be clearly explained later. Sometimes, his dedication to clarity feels overbearing, like when he recaps events from the previous two books thoroughly enough that one wouldn't have had to read them. Or when he takes half a page to have Holly or Jerome explain a bit of modern technology that would be obvious to the younger set, but I'm sure this would be helpful to the readers who are closer to Hodges' age.
I thought this was a very satisfying conclusion to the series. It left me imagining a TV series that could cover the entire storyline of Hodges and his partners. Although the track record of King TV adaptations lately, namely Under the Dome and 11.22.63 have been less than stellar, I think some kind of take on Mr Mercedes and its sequels could work out well. Any Stephen King fan would be happy with the way the books turned out.
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