THRILLER OF THE WEEK

Mr Mercedes Stephen King

In what King describes as his first hard-boiled detective novel, he pits a retired police officer against a deranged mass murderer. The story begins with a mystery man driving a stolen Mercedes into a crowd of urban poor, killing several of them. Detective Bill Hodges’s failure to solve the case dogs him into lonely retirement. He’s considering suicide when the homicidal driver, Mr Mercedes, sends him a taunting letter. Hodges rises to the bait and soon we’re embroiled in a thrilling cat-and-mouse game. King is returning to horror for his next book, but hopefully he’ll do more crime soon, too.