Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Series #1)

by Stephen King, Will Patton (Read by)

Overview

WINNER OF THE 2015 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
#1 New York Times bestseller! In a high-suspense race against time, three of the most unlikely heroes Stephen King has ever created try to stop a lone killer from blowing up thousands. “Mr. Mercedes is a rich, resonant, exceptionally readable accomplishment by a man who can write in whatever genre he chooses” (The Washington Post).

The stolen Mercedes emerges from the pre-dawn fog and plows through a crowd of men and women on line for a job fair in a distressed American city. Then the lone driver backs up, charges again, and speeds off, leaving eight dead and more wounded. The case goes unsolved and ex-cop Bill Hodges is out of hope when he gets a letter from a man who loved the feel of death under the Mercedes’s wheels…

Brady Hartsfield wants that rush again, but this time he’s going big, with an attack that would take down thousands—unless Hodges and two new unusual allies he picks up along the way can throw a wrench in Hartsfield’s diabolical plans. Stephen King takes off on a “nerve-shredding, pulse-pounding race against time” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) with this acclaimed #1 bestselling thriller.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442395404
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication date:	12/29/2015
Series:	Bill Hodges Series , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	221,222
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Will Patton's numerous film credits include Remember the Titans, The Punisher, The Mothman Prophesies, Armageddon, and The Spitfire Grill. He starred in the TNT miniseries Into the West and on the CBS series The Agency, and won Obie Awards in the theater for his performances in Fool for Love and What Did He See.

Hometown:

Bangor, Maine

Date of Birth:

September 21, 1947

Place of Birth:

Portland, Maine

Education:

B.S., University of Maine at Orono, 1970

Website:

http://www.stephenking.com

Editorial Reviews

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.

The New York Times Book Review - Megan Abbott

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)

Publishers Weekly - Audio

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.

Boston Herald

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.

Christian Science Monitor

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

Columbus Dispatch

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

The New York Times

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

Cleveland Plain Dealer

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

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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.

Tampa Bay Times

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

People Magazine

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

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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.

Bookpage

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.

BookReporter.com

"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."

Washington Post

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

USA Today

A fast-paced whodunit.

Esquire

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.

Sarasota Herald Tribune

. . . 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.

Onion AV Club

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

Raleigh News & Observer

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

Booklist

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.

Seattle Times

"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."

Miami Herald

"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."

Associated Press

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 . . .

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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.

Cemetery Dance

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

|Los Angeles Times

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

People Magazine

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

The New York Times - Megan Abbott

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

Los Angeles Times

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

USA Today

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

Booklist

"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."

Miami Herald

"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."

Washington Post

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

The New York Times

"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."

Associated Press Staff

★ 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

Library Journal - Audio

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)

Library Journal

Mr. Mercedes,” as he's been dubbed by the press, killed eight people by running them over in a large luxury car. He liked the feeling, and he wants more. Narrator Will Patton adds tension and a cinematic interpretation to this high-stakes race against time, featuring some of Stephen King’s most memorable characters in his first attempt at the hard-boiled detective genre. Patton takes long, dramatic pauses to heighten the suspense and allow the fear to play in the mind’s eye of the listener. King continues to document the horrors of everyday American life, and Patton brings those terrors to life as few narrators can. Here’s a “can’t miss” story in the best format available, the movie between your ears. R.O. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2015 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2014 - AudioFile

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.

Kirkus Reviews