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Friday 22 July 2016

END OF WATCH by Stephen King

Retired Detective Bill Hodges now runs a two-person firm called Finders Keepers with his partner Holly Gibney. They met in the wake of the 'Mercedes Massacre' when a queue of people were run down by the diabolical killer Brady Hartsfield. 

Brady is now confined to Room 217 of the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, in an unresponsive state. But all is not what it seems: the evidence suggests that Brady is somehow awake, and in possession of deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room. 

When Bill and Holly are called to a suicide scene with ties to the Mercedes Massacre, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk, as well as those of Bill's heroic young friend Jerome Robinson and his teenage sister, Barbara. Brady Hartsfield is back, and planning revenge not just on Hodges and his friends, but on an entire city. 

The clock is ticking in unexpected ways ...


I'm a huge Stephen King fan. Plus I loved the first two books in the Bill Hodges Trilogy--Mr Mercedes and Finders Keepers--so I couldn't wait to read the third and last book.

Bill Hodges is a retired cop and, along with Holly Gibney, runs a firm they call Finders Keepers. So when Bill gets a call from his ex-partner about what appears to be a murder-suicide, they find more than they bargained for. The quadriplegic victim allegedly killed by her mother was one of the many people mowed down by the disgusting Brady Hartsfield during the Job Fair at City Center six years earlier.

But something doesn't add up, and when Holly finds a strange game device in the home, they find themselves thrust into an impossible scenario. It appears that Brady, the heartless Suicide Prince, is somehow orchestrating something big from his bed in Room 217 at the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic. Which makes no sense, since Brady is technically a vegetable: a useless husk of a man who can't do anything for himself. That doesn't stop the ward from circulating stories about strange, unexplained things happening around him. 

With the body count rising and the risk of a suicide epidemic to mark Brady's revenge and hunger for hurting others, Bill and Holly enlist Jerome to investigate what's going on. But Bill has other problems to worry about. His time might be running out, in more ways than one...

OMG. Stephen King is such an amazing storyteller! As soon as I started reading, I was sucked into this heart-stopping book. Every page pulled me deeper into this intricate story. So much that I didn't want to put the book down. King has an incredible way of tricking us readers into thinking we're reading a simple, straightforward story... then throws us into a tailspin. Every single time I turned the page, I was both nervous and excited to find out what was coming next.

Let's talk about the characters. I loved Bill, Holly and Jerome so much that I was dreading what might happen to them all the way through. I didn't want anything bad to happen to any of them. But Brady was on the opposite side of the spectrum. I hated him with the power of a thousand suns. I wanted him to die a horrible death, didn't want to share the page with him as his insane story unfolded. He's despicable. An awful excuse for a human being.

Yeah, King writes characters who become real people.

End of Watch was the perfect end to an intriguing, thrilling trilogy. Like the first two books, I was on the edge of my seat and enjoyed the ride all the way to The End. The last 50 pages are an amazing, fast-paced nightmare that leads to a very satisfying, yet sad ending. I saw it coming, but it didn't stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. I also enjoyed the messed up supernatural angle added to this story.

Stephen King, you've done it again! 


End of Watch, June 2016, ISBN 9781473634015, Hodder & Stoughton

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