Book Review: Mr. Mercedes By Stephen King
Stephen King, an undisputed king of horror known for his masterful horror creatures, monsters, ghosts and demon, always recognised the fact that the bloodthirsty wraiths are never as scary as the terrors of mental illness, addiction, poverty and early trauma. The realities we often conveniently choose to ignore can often reside in places very close to us. Even next door.
Mr. Mercedes is the 57th novel written by the greatest horror writer of today. Even though Mr. Mercedes doesn’t revolve around supernatural evils, it is still very capable of invoking fear in the reader, only this time, the fear originates from sources all too real. The book itself is a race-against-time thriller revoking around a detective, who operates on his own and many times crosses the boundaries of law to put a stop to a maniacal killer with a long list of mental disorders. The setting of this gripping novel is fairly simple. As the economic recession takes its toll on a Midwestern American city, a job fair is held. Hordes of unemployed people turn up in hopes of a better tomorrow. As the plot was created by Stephen King, the night itself is of course foggy. Understandably, people gather up and talk to each other about their lives to fight the boredom. But right as the dawn breaks, a huge 12-cyllinder Mercedes tears through the fog and ploughs right through the massive group of people, killing eight people and injuring at least a dozen more. Probably a metaphor, people already hit by the inequality caused by a capitalist market failure, now get hit by a luxury car.
The main protagonist, Bill Hodges is an ex-detective who worked the Mercedes case before he retired. Because of the unsuccessful ending of his career and loss of purpose to life, Bill is now seriously considering suicide. Unexpectedly, a letter arrives. A letter that seems to be from Mr. Mercedes, the job fair killer. As the identity of Mr. Mercedes gets revealed almost immediately, we instead look into his twisted mind and get to look at his reasoning of why society is at fault. The character of Mr. Mercedes is so convincing, you almost side with the sick psychopath he is.
The novel later delves into a battle of cunning, the antagonist and protagonist both try to outsmart their opponent to fall into their trap. Despite the genius maneuvers Mr. Mercedes is capable of executing, Brady Hartfield, is in reality an unremarkable man driven by nothing significant. To tell the truth, he is only motivated by pure hatred, he hates the world and society for what it let him to become. In reality, the things that broke Brady Hartfield, the Mercedes killed were just a series of unfortunate accidents and not so great circumstances. By going on a murderous rampage, he forces the world to take notice of him and to accept his revenge.
The scariest aspect of the novel is the fact, that anyone can turn into a Brady Hartfield, the book talks about how fragile a human mind is and what a person is capable of if they get to feel that they are wronged. And the feeling is not uncommon, it can lurk inside anyone.
