A retired police detective, a teenage black boy, and a neurotic woman team up to form an

unlikely group of heroes who stop a killer known as Mr. Mercedes from detonating a bomb
during a sold out pop concert in this novel by Stephen King. Mr. Mercedes is the first installment
in the Bill Hodges trilogy. This novel follows the escapades of Hodges, a retired police officer
who is not yet ready to give up on solving the City Center Massacre, a case he handled while on
active duty.

Not long after retiring from his job as a detective, Bill Hodges gets a letter from a man claiming
to be the Mercedes Killer. The caller, whom the reader knows is Brady Hartsfield, goaded Olivia
Trelawney, a woman from whom he stole a car he used to kill eight people at a job fair, into
committing suicide. He is setting his sights on Hodges, hoping to push him into suicide as well
because Hodges was the lead detective on the case of the City Center Massacre. Instead of
becoming suicidal, Hodges takes a new interest in catching Mr. Mercedes. He first questions
Janelle “Janey” Patterson about Olivia’s death and learns that Olivia received a letter from Mr.
Mercedes as well. Janey believes the man toyed with her sister until she committed suicide. She
joins Hodges in his search for Mr. Mercedes.

Meanwhile, Brady Hartsfield has begun communicating with Hodges through an internet website.
Through his messages, Hodges gets Brady riled up with taunts that Brady is not the real
Mercedes Killer. Brady decides to retaliate by killing the dog of one of Hodges’ friends with
poisoned hamburger meat. Before he can get the meat to the dog, however, Brady’s mother
makes lunch with the hamburger and dies. In retaliation Brady sends Hodges a message saying he
will kill him.

Brady plants a bomb in Hodges’ car which would have killed him if Hodges had been driving the
car when the bomb was detonated. Instead, Janey is killed in the blast. Her death makes Hodges
even more determined to track down the man he still knows only as the Mercedes Killer.
Meanwhile, Hodges teams up with Jerome, a computer whiz teen, and Holly, Janey’s cousin who
suffers from mental illness but is also a computer genius, to help him uncover Mr. Mercedes’
identity.

Things move fast once Hodges, Jerome, and Holly learn that the killer is Brady, the same man
who works as the ice cream man in Hodges’ and Jerome’s neighborhood. They are able to hack
into Brady’s computers and learn he plans to detonate a bomb during that evening’s pop concert
at the city’s arts complex. Nearly 4,000 people will be in attendance, including Jerome’s sister
and mother.

Hodges, Jerome, and Holly arrive at the concert hall just as the music starts. Hodges recognizes
the shoulder pain he has been experiencing is the sign of a heart attack and sends Holly and
Jerome to subdue Brady. It is the neurotic and insecure Holly who stops Brady’s plan by hitting
him in the head with Hodges’ Happy Slapper, a homemade weapon consisting of ball bearings in
a sock.