Stephen King

Mr. Mercedes marks Stephen King’s first foray into hard‑boiled detective fiction, launching the Bill Hodges Trilogy. The story opens with a shocking act of mass violence: a stolen Mercedes plows into a crowd of unemployed job seekers, leaving several dead and injured. Months later, retired detective Bill Hodges — haunted by his failure to catch the culprit — receives a taunting letter from the self‑proclaimed “Mr. Mercedes.” Determined not to be defeated, Hodges assembles an unlikely team, including a sharp teenage helper and an unpredictable woman named Holly Gibney, to unravel the killer’s identity and stop his next heinous plan. Taut, character‑driven, and filled with psychological tension, the novel blends procedural crime suspense with deep emotional stakes as Hodges confronts his own demons in a desperate race against time