Mr. Mercedes

I initially found Mr. Mercedes difficult to get into because the initial dynamic between the protagonist and the villain seemed a bit unbelievable to me, but as the story progressed, I found it absorbing albeit ultimately forgettable since there are no grand overarching, grand themes. Instead of being timeless, Mr. Mercedes is rooted in a very contemporary phenomenon: the spree killer who feels entitled and wants revenge on the world. Mr. Mercedes isn’t about supernatural evil although there is a suggestion that there is a force in the universe that conspires to set things right after great wrongs are done. As the book unfolds, various ancillary crimes are resolved as a retired cop races to stop the biggest one. There are some unpredictable moments and excellent plot twists such as how the villain is ultimately thwarted and who gets killed on the good guy side. Pros: King tackles all permutations of mental illness and seems to take real efforts to demand more sympathy for and deliberately include in the community those who struggle with it. Negative: I’m going to call it the Aaron Rand Freeman rule of diversity-I would rather not have a member of a minority group represented if they are going to be represented–even consciously–stereotypically. King only does this ironically- the character jokingly shucks and jives, but is actually a high school student on his way to the Ivy Leagues. Um, why? I let it go this time, but I started to think about similar characters in his preceding books. Individually and spread out, I probably would be able to overlook it, but it is becoming a thing, or perhaps it always has been a thing for King and I just noticed. Either the noble homespun wisdom of a magical Southern Negro or the Northern African American mimicking his country cousins in the most stereotypical fashion possible, but actually is quite privileged yet more ordinary than the Southern counterpart. He has so many normal dudes in his books. Just make them the minority character. Pull an Alien. The blackness does not have to be a character.