King is clearly having fun, and so are we…For the first half of the novel, King tickles our anxieties, his detective engaging in a classic cat-and-mouse game with the killer. But you can feel him wriggling against the hard-boiled tradition, shaking the hinges. Soon enough, in ways large and small, he rejects and replaces the genre's creakiest devices…But it's the larger genre deviations that make Mr. Mercedes feel so fresh. At their purest, hard-boiled novels are fatalistic, offering a Manichaean view of humanity. For King, however, dark humor extends beyond the investigator's standard one-liners, reflecting a larger worldview. Killers and detectives make mistakes all the time…and coincidences play a far greater role than fate. Mr. Mercedes is a universe both ruled by a playful, occasionally cruel god and populated by characters all of whom have their reasons. One man can do only so much.

09/01/2014
King’s latest foray into suspense is a no-holds-barred cat-and-mouse contest between ex-cop Bill Hodges and Brady Hartsfield, a nerdy, mama’s boy who is also a mass murderer. The two combatants are connected by a homicidal hit-and-run that occurred months before, when Hartsfield purposely steered his stolen Mercedes sedan into a crowd of the unemployed waiting in line for the opening of a job fair. Hartsfield begins to stalk the ex-cop, and sends Hodges a taunting letter. Actor Patton (TNT’s Falling Skies) not only finds the right voices for protagonist and antagonist, but he matches their many mood swings. As Hodges undergoes the moments of elation and travail King has in store for him (the joy of an unexpected romance, the death of a close friend), Patton finds the perfect tone for him. As for Hartsfield, it’s a matter of making him sound like a normal, likeable fellow to his coworkers at an electronics store, but a passive-aggressive monster when conversing with the ex-detective and a full-out lunatic when thinking or talking to himself. Patton’s performing skills are equally impressive for the supporting cast, from Hodges’s elegant and bright new girlfriend to Hartsfield’s boozy, clueless mother. But it’s his compelling interpretations of the two male leads—King’s avatars of good and evil—that distinguish this riveting production. A Scribner hardcover. (June)

. . . barrels toward a memorable conclusion. King’s work has almost always gotten lost in translation on the big screen, but his tense, propulsive, ultra-fast-paced climax here seems like it was written with the movie in mind.

A war between good and evil, from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.

With Mr.Mercedes, [King] demonstrates that he can still rock a pure genre novel like nobody’s business. . . . a thrilling example of King’s boundless imagination.

A trimmer-than-usual King, but that doesn't mean he skimps on the suspense and spine-tingling chills.

As always, Stephen King draws very real people and scenes straight out of life as we know it . . .

A fast-paced cat-and-mouse game between Hodges, the motley group of unlikely heroes that he assembles, and the Mercedes Killer.

Hartfield is sensitive, sympathetic and one of King’s most realistic characters. He is a lot like Norman Bates from Psycho, in the worst ways imaginable.You can add Hartfield to the list of great King villains, alongside the shape-shifting monster Pennywise from It and the hypnotic vampire Kurt Barlow from Salem’s Lot.

King creates such vivid characters—people you can picture yourself drinking a beer with or inviting over for lunch. So when he puts them in great peril, and that includes Jerome’s family and pet dog and the Mercedes’ owner’s family, it’s a race against time . . .

King may have left out the supernatural in Mr. Mercedes, but his gifts for creating thoroughly believable characters and thrumming suspense are in full play. He keeps raising the stakes and ratcheting up the violence, and just when you think everything is settled there's one spine-icing little turn on the very last page.

A showdown between good and evil that characterizes the best of King's work, regardless of genre.

King deftly takes elements of hard-boiled mysteries and puts a fresh spin on them.

The most straight-up mystery-thriller of [King’s] career…Pretty darn fresh.

A fast-paced whodunit.

Along book that doesn’t feel like one. King’s pacing is perfect here . . . [Y]ou should read Mr. Mercedes. You’ll be checking your automobile’s back seat for months, if not years.

No one can create a villain quite like King. . . . [A]ll the elements come together in a very public, potentially explosive finale (with a surprising post script). King fans may find themselves furiously turning pages long into the night.

An oh-so-dark mystery that never shuts the door on love, loss and, possibly, redemption.

A literary Van de Graaff generator: tightly paced and parsed with dynamic dialogue and traumatic twists.

A full-throttle sprint to the finish; the last 80 pages cannot be doled out over multiple reading sessions. You'll have to swallow them all in a single gulp.

The nerve-shredding denouement is vintage King—a pulse-pounding race against time . . .

"A taut, calibrated thriller . . . The majority of the book is merciless and unforgiving, and the scariest thing about it is how plausible the whole scenario is."

Think of Mr. Mercedes as an AC/DC song: uncluttered, chugging with momentum, and a lot harder to pull off than it looks. . . . King has written a hot rod of a novel,perfect for a few summer days at the pool. Mercedes-Benz commands drivers to demand ‘the best or nothing.’ In pop-fiction terms, that motto still applies to Stephen King, too. With apologies to AC/DC, the highway to hell never felt so fun.

"On one level, Mr. Mercedes is an expertly crafted example of the classic race-against-the-clock thriller. On another, it is a novel of depth and character enriched throughout by the grace notes King provides in such seemingly effortless profusion. It is a rich, resonant, exceptionally readable accomplishment by a man who can write in whatever genre he chooses."

"Classic Stephen King. Creepy, yet realistic characters that get under your skin and stay there, a compelling story that twists and turns at breakneck speed, and delightful prose that, once again, proves that one of America’s greatest natural storytellers is also one of its finest writers."

A taut, suspenseful race-against-time book . . . [King is] in reliably fine form.

"Pays off exuberantly... Surprising and invigorating."

05/15/2015
Start your engines and fasten your seat belts for a wild ride with this hard-boiled thriller about a malevolent hit- and-run driver and the race to stop his madness. VERDICT King fans anticipating the sequel will want to reread this, while other readers may enjoy the author's first take on a classic detective story. (LJ 5/15/14)

★ 09/01/2014
While this novel lacks the demonic/paranormal scenarios that King's most ardent fans expect, it is a highly enjoyable crime story that is concerned with true horror: a creative sociopath. Retired detective (Ret-Det) Bill Hodges receives a letter taunting him for his failure to solve the case of the "Mercedes Killer," the clown-masked driver of a large sedan that plowed through a crowd of hopefuls at a Midwestern job fair. Brady Hartsfield turns out to be more than a bold, inventive murderer; he's also a psychoterrorist and clever stalker. The letter pulls the Ret-Det out of his self-destructive ennui and gets him back in the game. Will Patton's nuanced narration of this fast-paced thriller is excellent. King's wry observations on current society, especially American views on race relations, class, wealth, status, and aging, will hit home for many listeners. VERDICT This terrific version of the first of King's projected trilogy is highly recommended for adult collections. ["[King] encumbers the plotline with insignificant details, causing his thriller to plod along rather than pulse with the tension and suspense often characteristic of detective fiction," countered the review of the Scribner hc, LJ 5/15/14.]—Cliff Glaviano, formerly with Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH

2014-05-07
In his latest suspenser, the prolific King (Joyland, 2013, etc.) returns to the theme of the scary car—except this one has a scary driver who's as loony but logical unto himself as old Jack Torrance from The Shining.It's an utterly American setup: Over here is a line of dispirited people waiting to get into a job fair, and over there is a psycho licking his chops at the easy target they present; he aims a car into the crowd and mows down a bunch of innocents, killing eight and hurting many more. The car isn't his. The malice most certainly is, and it's up to world-weary ex-cop Bill Hodges to pull himself up from depression and figure out the identity of the author of that heinous act. That author offers help: He sends sometimes-taunting, sometimes-sympathy-courting notes explaining his actions. ("I must say I exceeded my own wildest expectations," he crows in one, while in another he mourns, "I grew up in a physically and sexually abusive household.") With a cadre of investigators in tow, Hodges sets out to avert what is certain to be an even greater trauma, for the object of his cat-and-mouse quest has much larger ambitions, this time involving a fireworks show worthy of Fight Club. And that's not his only crime: He's illegally downloaded "the whole Anarchist Cookbook from BitTorrent," and copyright theft just may be the ultimate evil in the King moral universe. King's familiar themes are all here: There's craziness in spades and plenty of alcohol and even a carnival, King being perhaps the most accomplished coulrophobe at work today. The storyline is vintage King, too: In the battle of good and evil, good may prevail—but never before evil has caused a whole lot of mayhem.The scariest thing of all is to imagine King writing a happy children's book. This isn't it: It's nicely dark, never predictable and altogether entertaining.