Mr. Mercedes

Mr Mercedes is a crime novel by American writer Stephen King, published on 3 June 2014. King has described it as his first hard-boiled detective book. It is the first volume in a trilogy, followed by Finders Keepers in 2015 and End of Watch in 2016.

The novel opens with the job-fair attack and then divides its attention between two men. Bill Hodges is a retired detective who is depressed, divorced and at loose ends when a letter from the killer, who signs himself as the perpetrator, renews his interest in the case. Brady Hartsfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born and is the driver, and the book moves between the two of them rather than keeping the offender hidden.

The novel won the 2015 Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America and the Goodreads Choice Award for 2014 in the mystery and thriller category. King first mentioned the project during a talk at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in December 2012, describing a crime novel about a retired policeman taunted by a murderer, and it was inspired by a real incident in which a woman drove into a restaurant. He began it before the Boston Marathon bombings and noted afterwards that the terrorist plot it involves came uncomfortably close to events.