It's a question of starting point. [Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King]

Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes is a crime thriller following the adventures of a retired detective, Bill Hodges, and his cohorts as they race against time to foil the new machinations of a recently resurfaced mass murderer. A solid crime thriller, Mr. Mercedes is an adrenaline ride from start to finish. Having completed my read of this first book in the Bill Hodges trilogy I can honestly say that overall I enjoyed the book. Still, there was one giant issue that nagged me throughout.

First, let's talk about the rating I'll be giving this book. Do I start from 5 stars or do I start from 4? Pretty much the only reason I'd dock a potential rating is the weird voicing of non-white characters. Later on in the book there's a moment that seems to conflate Dominican culture and Mexican culture, when a Dominican cop says "esse." Being that my family is Dominican, I'm letting you know that's not a thing Dominicans say. Even less so when they're a minority in a mostly white space, and one can imagine even less so when that space is law enforcement. 

But the big whopper, the one that continues throughout the series, is the voice of Jerome, the teenage Black neighbor and young cohort of the protagonist. He has some kind of crisis of identity being one of the only Black kids in his neighborhood and so he materializes this anxiety into weird conversational slave speak, or so we're told and expected to believe. It's enough that the antagonist has his monologue rife with racial slurs to paint the scenes, but randomly and unnecessarily we have this middle-class, well-to-do in every aspect of life Black male routinely framing himself and his life in that context. Even the white detective tells him to stop with that speak.

It was an awkward part of the reading and I didn't need it. That said, I still enjoyed the overall story. I really enjoyed Holly. There were things that were frustrating as I read. When I, the reader, knew all the parts of the story and had to wait for the characters to piece them together - frustrating! Of course, that's part of the story because otherwise it'd be convenient plot construction, so I can't be too mad. On the flip side there were times when I wondered if obvious points weren't being made to come together for characters, and that too is a weird convenient plot construction.

So all in all, while I'm still not sure what my final rating will be, if I start from 5 stars I'd probably give it a 4-star rating, and from 4 stars to 3 stars respectively. Because of the awkward voice thing my reading experience also included that thing where you're yelling at the book that the logic doesn't follow. I cannot, as a Black woman, believe that a young Black man in that situation would speak as he was written speaking. But if you're into crime thrillers this was a experience. I enjoyed hating the antagonist. Being that I have several books in my queue I don't know that I'll be in a crazy rush to start the sequel, Finders Keepers, but I probably will read it at some point in the near future.