Mercedes, Bill Hodges and his two unusual assistants -a young African-American high school student named Jerome Robinson and a psychologically unstable forty-five-year-old woman called Holly Gibney -must track down the Mercedes Killer before he can kill again. On that fateful morning, a psychopath wearing a clown mask and yellow gloves drove a stolen Mercedes into a crowd of job-seekers, killing eight, paralyzing three, and severely wounding many others.Īlthough each novel is unique, this single atrocity perpetrated by a lone psychopath acts as an emotional and psychological ground zero for all three books. Mercedes in 2010, Finders Keepers between 19, and End of Watch in 2016 -what unites all three stories is a vivid flashback to the early hours of April 10, 2009. Although each book takes place in a slightly different time period -Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of Watch-star Kermit William Hodges, a highly decorated but recently retired police officer whose life has become entangled with that of a poisonous serial killer. Mystery and murder were also the focus of King’s novels Joyland and The Colorado Kid, both of which were published by Hard Case Crime.Īll three books in the Bill Hodges trilogy -Mr. Novels such as Dolores Claiborne, Misery, Gerald’s Game, and The Shining have all been acknowledged as powerful psychological thrillers, while Black House-one of two collaborative novels written with King’s longtime friend, Peter Straub -made chilling use of the real-life butchery perpetrated by the pedophile and cannibal Albert Fish.

Although King is most famous for his supernatural fiction, his Constant Readers have always delighted in the Master of Horror’s deft use of suspense and real-life crime. Mercedes, the first installment in a trilogy of thrillers about a retired detective–cum–private investigator whose final unsolved police case comes back to haunt him. In 2015, the Mystery Writers of America presented the Edgar Award to Stephen King for his detective novel Mr.

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