If you want to know why I'm such a big fan of the works of this author, see my ranking of best books written by Stephen King.
Is it worth to read Mr Mercedes? I'm convinced that the answer is: yes. This is the most straight-up mystery-thriller in King's bibliography and it's good.
In Mr Mercedes we have a classic battle between good and evil: on one hand, there is Brady, who plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over many innocent people, and escapes. One year after the police still doesn't have any suspects.
On the other hand, there's Kermit William Hodges, a retired cop, who is still haunted by the unsolved crime. When he gets a crazed letter from someone who self-identifies as the “perk” and threatens an even more diabolical attack, Hodges decides to catch the killer, before he strikes again. William has no time to lose, because Brady's next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim thousands of people.
This is only a brief description of the book Mr Mercedes (see full description), but from the beginning we know who is the killer, so no spoilers here :-). The bigger question is whether and how Hodges will connect all the information and find Brady?
The action takes place over almost 500 pages, but we are not dealing with painstaking police work, but more of a psychological war between the murderer and the detective. The book is very well written, has interesting plot, characters and dialogues.
That's why I think that Mr Mercedes is successful King's debut in a detective genre, but if you want to know best works of Stephen King, I encourage you to read titles from my ranking of King's novels.
If you are going on vacation, a long journey or just want to read a good crime book, go ahead and reach for the Mr Mercedes. It will most certainly catch your attention.
