Mr Mercedes

by Stephen King

In Stephen King's latest, the evil forces are very much human. Nothing in Mr. Mercedes is out of this world. The killer is the guy next door. He fixes your computer and sells you ice cream.

The stories that are set in the reals of the possible rather than the impossible are somehow more upsetting. This already worked for me in Gerald's Game (aka nobody's favorite book by King), in which also nothing happened that could happen to anyone, anywhere, any day.

The killer, Brady, is a computer-savvy Mama's boy, that one day decided to drive into a group of people and was more surprised than anyone else that he actually got away with it. While his case is on the track to going cold, he contacts the now retired detective that worked it, who decides to take it on himself.

Stephen King, at one point in the book, actually references himself. Such is his cultural stance, that he can easily get away with it without sounding pretentious. Because, when he refers to one of his own stories, everyone actually does now what he is talking about.

'Creepy as hell. You ever see that TV movie about the clown in the sewer?'

Even though this will not become anyone's favorite Stephen King's book ever, it is solid work. Far from his best, but on par with any mystery put out. Basically, we witness Brady trying to plot going out with a final big bang - preferably before he goes to pieces.

Te scariest idea of the thing is when Brady decides to kill the dog of the detective's friend. Which goes horribly wrong, but luckily not for the dog and his family.

Entertaining. Just not as much as Stephen King books can be.

The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That's all history is, after all: scar tissue.

6/10

The Fry Chronicles

It has been a while since I last updated this blog. There a several reasons for this. For one, I got stuck watching Masterchef Australia (current and previous seasons) and I got even more stuck reading Donna Tartt's latest The Goldfinch. Not that it is a bad book, it isn't. It is just so fucking big and heavy in hand that I grew physically tired of holding it in my hand and the pace of the story (not too fast) does not reel me in deeply enough for me to ignore that fact. And then, of course, there is the World Cup in Brazil to follow. So many ways to get sidetracked.

But, luckily, I do take the public transport to work and the only valid means of entertainment is reading. For this, however, the aforementioned Goldfinch is much too heavy. Therefore,  a smaller volume that fits my handbag has to do for my trips. 

And this has been it for the past few weeks....

by Stephen Fry

The Fry Chronicles are the second autobiography by Stephen Fry. The first, Moab Is My Washpot, covered his childhood and troubled teenage years. This now deals with his time at university and his first steps into the entertainment business.

Does one need to have read Moab before taking on the Chronicles? Not really. One should mostly have read Moab because it is entertaining and sweet and, yes, heartbreaking at times...

Fry is a rather hapless fellow and just plain likable. He forever apologizes for his success and stresses that his talent is inferior to many of the people that he came up with. His group of friends and contemporaries does include some of the biggest names in film and comedy - Emma Thompson, Rowan Atkinson, Douglas Adams, and his long-time partner in crime, Hugh Laurie, to name but a few. Fry does seem to stick out like a sore thumb and still doesn't appear to have grasped what people see in him and why he would deserve the success he has had for a few decades now.

I just like the guy.

7/10