If you are looking for a good book to buy someone this year, then you really should take a closer look at the latest book by Stephen King.
While you may usually associate Stephen King with horror books, in his latest set of novels, the Bill Hodges Trilogy, the author has left the evil clown monsters and the possessed cars to one side and has produced instead a thrilling crime story with just a hint of the supernatural.
Here's a brief review of the three books that, together, make up the latest offering from Stephen King: Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of Watch, which are collectively known as the Bill Hodges Trilogy.
Mr. Mercedes
The first book in the Bill Hodges Trilogy is Mr. Mercedes and what happens at the very beginning of the story sets the scene for the whole series. A man named Brady Hartsfield drives his car straight into a line of jobless people seeking work, killing many of them. Hartsfield has a morbid fascination with death and suicide and a burning desire to kill as many people as he can. One of his targets is Bill Hodges, a retired cop, who Hartsfield tries to drive to suicide. Instead of driving Hodges to despair though, all Hartsfield does is he gives Hodges a renewed purpose in his life and that purpose is to stop Brady Hartsfield from killing anyone else.
Finders Keepers
In Finders Keepers, the second book in the trilogy, the story begins by looking at how the families of those killed by Brady Hartsfield were affected by the Mr Mercedes massacre. Hartsfield is lying in a hospital bed in a vegetative state, deemed unfit to stand trial. We meet a new villain in Finders Keepers, Morris Bellamy, who murdered a well-known author and stole one the writer's manuscripts. The stories of Mr Mercedes and Bellamy are linked, when the son of one of the victims of the Mr Mercedes massacre finds the stolen manuscript. Meanwhile, Bill Hodges has been taunting Brady Hartsfield in his hospital bed, believing that the Mr Mercedes killer is faking. Nurses in the hospital begin to notice objects moving being moved around and other, perhaps, paranormal occurrences.
End of Watch
In the latest Stephen King book, End of Watch, the Bill Hodges Trilogy moves away from being a pure crime novel and into the realms of the paranormal. We find out more about the strange abilities that Brady Hartsfield appears to have developed and how he plans to use those powers to escape the prison that his own body has become. He plots his revenge on Bill Hodges and decides to complete what he started with the Mr Mercedes killings.
In End of Watch, Stephen King brilliantly combines a detective story with a tale of the supernatural. The result is an edge-of-the-seat read that is full of insights into human nature and brimming with superb storytelling.
If you are looking to buy a book for someone this year, then these three latest Stephen King books will please both Stephen King fans and first time King readers equally. Yes, there are elements of the supernatural towards the end of the trilogy, but it's not a monster riddled fright-fest like you might think. It is, however, a riveting read from the first page of Mr Mercedes, all the way through to the last page of End of Watch.
This review had been brought to you by StephenKingStore.com where you will find all the latest latest Stephen King books and loads of Stephen King Merchandise, including posters, coffee mugs, T Shirts, and DVDs.
By
Neil Savin