End of Watch by Stephen King

This is the third and final book in the saga of retired Detective Kermit William Hodges. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back and check out my reviews of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers. Yay self-promotion! Or even read the books, they're good.

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.

Misery by Stephen King

As I mentioned in my review of Finders Keepers, I knew Stephen King had written about an obsessed literature fan before, but I had only seen the movie version of Misery, and had not read the book. It was also referred to in William Goldman's introduction to The Princess Bride, because while Goldman wrote the screenplay, he got to know King as a colleague. Not to mention there's now a Broadway version of the story. So it felt like a good time to finally read this nearly-three-decade-old novel.

At the same time as being a thrilling story, Misery is just as much a look inside the mind of a writer as King's non-fiction guide On Writing. Protagonist Paul Sheldon is the author of the popular Victorian-set books about a woman named Misery, and in the most recent one she has died during childbirth. This does not sit well with Annie Wilkes, who has coincidentally found Paul near her house after a car accident and put him up in her home. As a former nurse, she has all the painkillers he could need, and forces him to start a new book that brings Misery back to life, appropriately titled Misery's Return.

All of Misery is told from Paul's point of view, and we can nearly feel the pain of his crushed legs and his rage and fear towards his captor. Near the middle of the book, we get to see the progress that Paul has made on Misery's Return, complete with the n's tediously filled in by hand to compensate for the broken key on the typewriter Annie provides. I think this device adds to the verisimilitude of the story, since you can see how Paul's typed words deteriorate along with the typewriter (it soon loses its "t" and "e" keys) and his situation at the mercy of Annie. Cut off from the outside world and with seemingly no chance of getting out of the guest bedroom, his writing is the only way he can "escape".

I can tell why this story has endured, and been adapted as multiple forms of media over the years. It's filled with suspense as Annie reveals further layers of her insanity and Paul gets more desperate to find his way out of the house. And although Stephen King has written many stories starring authors, his examination of what drives one to create and sustain fictional worlds (even when not under duress) remains a fascinating and enduring subject.

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

As I mentioned in my review of Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes, that was the first of a trilogy. Finders Keepers is the second part of the series but the recurring characters don't appear immediately, and it doesn't feel entirely organic when they do.

The story starts off in 1978 in the home of acclaimed author John Rothstein. He is known for a trilogy of books (hey that sounds familiar) about a man named Jimmy Gold. Morris Bellamy, who mostly loved the Gold novels, is quite upset with the way the third book ended, and ends up killing Rothstein. With a few accomplices, Bellamy gets away with money-filled envelopes and several Moleskine journals from Rothstein's safe. He later kills the two accomplices and realizes the journals are filled with unpublished writing that includes two more Jimmy Gold novels, which is more valuable to Bellamy than the cash. He ends up hiding both the journals and money in a trunk buried near his house, and goes to jail for a crime he doesn't even remember committing, rather than the robbery and homicides.


That may seem like an exhaustive plot but we're just getting started. About thirty years later, a boy name Pete Saubers lives in Bellamy's former home and finds the buried trunk. Since his family is having financial trouble, he decided to anonymously send the cash to his own address, a couple hundred dollars at a time. Meanwhile, Morris Bellamy has been in jail but happens to be up for parole. Once Bellamy realizes the journals are not where he left them he's on the warpath. When Pete's cash runs out, he tries to find a way to make money off the Rothstein writings but it's not as easy as he hoped, and his sister gets in touch with Ret. Det. Bill Hodges because Hodges helped a friend of hers.


So Hodges and his acquaintances Holly Gibney and Jerome Robinson from Mr. Mercedes finally get involved in the story at this point, and it just isn't handled as smoothly as in the first book, in which they were way more personally invested in the crime. I feel like King had the story of the murderous literary fan in mind and he shoehorned in the established characters. Morris Bellamy will remind readers of Annie Wilkes from King's Misery since she was quite upset with the author of her favorite books, except Annie wasn't as blatantly bloodthirsty as Bellamy. He's also not as interesting of an antagonist as the mother-obsessed Brady Hartsfield from Mr. Mercedes. In this volume Hartsfield is hinted to have gained telekinesis, a seemingly common King trope, but that does keep me interested to see where things will go in the finale of this trilogy. Finders Keepers was compelling enough while I was reading it, but by the end it didn't leave a lasting impression and was ultimately filler.

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

I have been a long time fan of Stephen King, who has earned a reputation as horror writer, but I think he's just as compelling when stepping outside of that genre. Mr. Mercedes is what King calls "his first hard-boiled detective book," being the story of a retired police detective who is taunted by a killer who got away with his crime.

Bill Hodges is deep in self loathing and considering using his father's revolver to end his life when he gets a creepy letter. The writer alleges to be behind a vehicular massacre that occurred a year earlier, mowing down a crowd waiting to get in to a job fair. The Mercedes-Benz used in the crime was stolen from a woman named Olivia Trelawney, driven to suicide from guilt when she became convinced that she left her keys in the car. Hodges falls in love with Olivia's daughter Janey while she helps him unravel the case, and a teenager named Jerome who lives in the neighborhood also provides some ahead-of-his-age wisdom.

The reader gets almost as much time in the mind of the retired detective as we do with Brady Hartsfield, who in the letter to Hodges refers to himself as the "perk" who ran down those unfortunate people. Brady, like Psycho's Norman Bates, is obsessed with his mother to an unhealthy degree, and gets headaches that signify his murderous urges. Brady works both in an ice cream truck and at an electronics store in the local mall, so he's the type of bad guy who hides in plain sight. Most of the suspense of this novel arises because we know from Brady's chapters exactly what he plans to do, and subsequently we see how Hodges is just a step behind.

This cat and mouse aspect keeps the story engaging, and the characters all have believable personalities. Brady has unwittingly given Hodges a reason to live instead of making the "fat ex-cop" end it all. Hodges and his companions make some human errors during their investigations, and Brady causes some deaths that he didn't intend but still delights in. King gives us plenty of reasons to hate Brady Hartfield, but a flashback gives him a little humanity as well. At the risk of giving too much away, I thought it was interesting that the two main characters never come face to face like you might expect.

The author says this book is the start of a trilogy, which surprised me because it's rare that Stephen King will write sequels, with the exceptions of The Dark Tower series and the recent (and disappointing) sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep. I enjoyed Mr. Mercedes, and I definitely look forward to reading the continuing adventures of Detective Hodges in Finder Keepers and the upcoming End of Watch.

For more about Stephen King, try stephenking.com.