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“A trimmer than usual King, but
that doesn’t mean he skimps on the suspense and spine-tingling chills.”
— People magazine
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“King deftly takes elements of
hard-boiled mysteries and puts a fresh spin on them.”
— USA Today
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“Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes pits two malcontented men
with nowhere lives who are both determined to regenerate themselves—but in
radically different ways.”
— Barnes&Noble.com, editorial review
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“A fast-paced whodunit.”
— Esquire
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“Pays off exuberantly…Surprising
and invigorating.”
— New York Times
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“Classic Stephen King. Creepy,
yet realistic characters that get under your skin and stay there, a compelling
story that twists and turns at breakneck speed, and delightful prose that, once
again, proves that one of America’s greatest natural storytellers is also one
of its finest writers.”
— Associated Press
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“King is clearly having fun, and so
are we…For the first half of the novel, King tickles our anxieties, his
detective engaging in a classic cat-and-mouse game with the killer. But you can
feel him wriggling against the hard-boiled tradition, shaking the hinges. Soon
enough, in ways large and small, he rejects and replaces the genre’s creakiest
devices… Mr. Mercedes is a universe
both ruled by a playful, occasionally cruel god and populated by characters all
of whom have their reasons. One man can do only so much.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“On one level, Mr. Mercedes is an expertly crafted
example of the classic race-against-the-clock thriller. On another, it is a
novel of depth and character enriched throughout by the grace notes King
provides in such seemingly effortless profusion. It is a rich, resonant,
exceptionally readable accomplishment by a man who can write in whatever genre
he chooses.”
— Washington Post
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“Hartfield is sensitive,
sympathetic, and one of King’s most realistic characters. He is a lot like
Norman Bates from Psycho, in the
worst ways imaginable. You can add Hartfield to the list of great King
villains, alongside the shape-shifting monster Pennywise from It and the hypnotic vampire Kurt Barlow from
Salem’s Lot.”
— Boston Herald
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“A taut, calibrated thriller…The
majority of the book is merciless and unforgiving, and the scariest thing about
it is how plausible the whole scenario is.”
— Miami Herald
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“Think of Mr. Mercedes as an AC/DC song: uncluttered, chugging with momentum,
and a lot harder to pull off than it looks….King has written a hot rod of a
novel, perfect for a few summer days at the pool. Mercedes-Benz commands
drivers to demand ‘the best or nothing.’ In pop-fiction terms, that motto still
applies to Stephen King, too. With apologies to AC/DC, the highway to hell
never felt so fun.”
— Christian Science Monitor
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“In this suspenseful crime thriller
from megaseller King, ex-detective Bill Hodges is settling badly into his
retirement. Then he receives a taunting letter from someone who claims to be
the Mercedes Killer—the media’s name for the hit-and-run driver who, a year
earlier, deliberately plowed a stolen car into a crowd at a job fair, killing
eight and maiming fifteen…King excels in his disturbing portrait of Brady, a
genuine monster in ordinary human form who gives new meaning to the phrase ‘the
banality of evil.’”
— Publishers Weekly
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“King returns to the theme of the
scary car—except this one has a scary driver who’s as loony but logical unto
himself as old Jack Torrance from The Shining…Nicely dark, never predictable,
and altogether entertaining.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“Narrator Will Patton adds
tension and a cinematic interpretation to this high-stakes race against time,
featuring some of Stephen King’s most memorable characters in his first attempt
at the hard-boiled detective genre. Patton takes long, dramatic pauses to
heighten the suspense and allow the fear to play in the mind’s eye of the
listener. King continues to document the horrors of everyday American life, and
Patton brings those terrors to life as few narrators can. Here’s a ‘can’t miss’
story in the best format available, the movie between your ears. Winner of
AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile