Krishna
This is a sequel to Mr Mercedes, which we had reviewed earlier here. Even though it is a sequel, this is also a standalone novel and you would miss very little if you read this first.
Mr Rothstein, nearly eighty is the victim of a home invasion, as he thinks. He is a retired writer a recluse living alone in a deserted neighborhood. Three men in masks – Yellow, Blue and Red – come in. He assumes they want money. One of them, Morris Bellamy is upset with the last novel in the most famous trilogy so far. Rothstein, stung to anger, defies him and gets shot.
Meanwhile Tom and Linda are married and Tom has lost his job. He goes to the employment place and, tying in with the first scene of Mr Mercedes, gets hit by the same car and loses his legs. His life turns to hell and their fighting affects both their son Pete and daughter Tina suffer. This is the clever tie in with the first book but this happens decades after the author’s murder.
Meanwhile Morris kills both his accomplices after leaving the writer’s house. The first one was shot but the second had to be run over by the stolen car.
He then dumps the car and goes home. Morris goes to see his shady bookdealer friend Drew and tries to pass on the notebook sample for money but Drew says that the body of the artist has been discovered very early and that Morris himself may be in trouble, with the law catching up very soon.
The notebook spirals of Rothstein were ‘red hot’ because the cops found the author’s body quickly and his fence will not touch it. So Morris decides to take a couple of hundred and bury the suitcase near a river under a because there was a gap in the space at the roots. He does, but then gets drunk with the money and wakes up in a prison cell. He has got life for attempted rape – an unrelated incident that takes him out of circulation for several years. Almost twenty. In the meanwhile
Decades later, but earlier than his release, Pete finds the money and the book drafts. He sends money one piece at a time to his parents, tiding them over and also erasing his father’s resentment. Finally Tom manages to get a job and bring in some money but inflation is eating into their family expenses and when the money runs out, they are in a bit of difficulty again.
Pete meanwhile has read the books and is fascinated. He is a fan of Rothstein but then does not know how to let everyone know that it was found because questions would be asked of the money and even more dangerously, his family would find out he was sending them blood stained money.
Meanwhile the story goes back in time to show how Morris came to find Rothstein’s books and how he felt strongly betrayed by Jimmy’s slide from a rebel to a conformist bent on raising a family and making money. Which ties into the first scene of the book very well.
Morris gets freed from the jail and is looking at his friend who refused to buy from him all those years ago – Drew. Decides not to proceed. However, he goes and checks that the trunk is still in place. Once he sees that, he does not open it but closes the hole back.
Meanwhile Pete Saubers goes to Drew with a photocopy and Drew tries to first offer a low price for the lot (six notebooks) and when Pete rejects it, exposes and blackmails him. Pete and Drew get into a cat and mouse game where Pete realizes that he made a mistake and is trying to wiggle out of the situation and Drew is increasingly astonished at the wiliness of Pete.
He moves his boxes out to a garage sale place which his father owns and kept there forever. But his fear shows and gets Tina worried.
Meanwhile our Bill Hodges makes an appearance where he is taking back a stolen plane from a swindler and soon after, hands him over to his friend at the FBI by tipping off that man.
The strands come together (and you understand why this is a sequel to the first book The Mercedes Killer) when Barbara, Tina’s friend brings over her to confess to Bill. She sees Tom deathly afraid and is scared that he will do something drastic in his panic.
Bill tries to catch Pete when he leaves the college and covers all entrances through his friend Jerome and Holly but when confronted by Jerome, the boy walks into a drug store to get medicine for dad and slips out the back door.
Morris goes to the tree and finds the suitcase empty of cash and, even more important, the books. He immediately suspects his shady friend Drew. He confronts Drew with a meat cleaver, takes him to the room inside. Totally cowed, Drew confesses that he does not have the notebooks and under fear, tells him that he knows who has them. Pete. He gives the address too. He tells Morris that Pete is due to come meet him that evening. He then is murdered and Morris takes his place at the front.
Pete arrives and is shepherded into the room. When he sees the dead body of Drew, Pete understands that he is trapped in the room with a killer. He also knows that the moment the killer gets the notebooks, his life is over. He audaciously throws sprits on the face of Morris and manages to run out. But Morris is not done with Pete. He knows where Pete lives.
Meanwhile, Bill Hodges, Jerome and Holly piece together the story with the help of a college professor whom Pete consulted and guess the rest. They are anxious to help and so rush to Drew’s bookshop.
They find the corpse and a recent sign of bottle breaking and also a fresh bullet hole. Know that there has been a battle.
The story takes off from there in a cat and mouse game, Morris trying to blackmail Pete into giving him the books and Pete trying to stay alive.
The climax comes when Morris kidnaps Tina and takes her to the very same Rec Room where the books are kept and Pete goes there determined to save Tina. No gun, no knife but he takes lighter fluid and a lighter from his dad’s room.
What follows is pure magic and vintage King.
Excellent ending but the Epilog did not make sense at all. And I don’t know why the villain of the first book, a vegetable, still obsesses Bill Hodge enough to go often and visit him.
But still, those are small issues. The book is great to read and you cannot put down the book at least in the last sixty pages or so.
8/10
— Krishna