Happy Reading

Toni's bookshelf: read

The Godfather of Kathmandu (Sonchai Jitpleecheep, #4)
Ape House
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Operation Napoleon
Walking Dead
The Sentimentalists
The Heretic Queen
The Midnight House
Cross Fire
Peony in Love
Absurdistan
Nefertiti
Finding Nouf: A Novel
City of Veils: A Novel
First Daughter
A Place of Hiding
Amagansett
Peter Pan


Toni Osborne's favorite books »
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Friday, September 25, 2015

"Mr. Mercedes", by Stephen King

Book 1, in the Bill Hodges Trilogy

A hard-boiled detective book is definitely not what I had expected Mr. King would have come up with next. This new genre received positive reviews and won him the Edgar Award in 2015 for Best Novel.

This story is so different from is standard “horror stories” it is hard to imagine that this cat and mouse game about a psychopathic killer (Brady) and a renegade cop (Hodge) could have met my expectation. It did and much more. This is a fascinating story that takes the old detective genre to the next level. Let’s not think Mr. King left scary parts aside, after all he will always have a scary side. Adding a sociopath on a rampage can be characterized as “horrific” for anyone and is predictable King-isms at its best. The story is tense, ultra-fast and has a collection of expressions handled with a machine-gun prose. It has a bit of mishmash of jargon and the tone may be infuriating at times although I surpassed this very quickly. The set is staged by alternating between Hodges’ and Brady points of view and this richly layered savvy story, a showdown between good and evil is an excellent addition to my library

“Mr. Mercedes” is an entertaining and engaging ride.

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