Mr Mercedes by Stephen King
If you've dismissed Stephen King as 'just a horror writer' but you like a good thriller or a tense detective novel, swallow your preconceptions and give Mr Mercedes a go. There's less gore than in many a contemporary crime novel, and not the slightest hint of the supernatural. I've been a Stephen King fan for nearly twenty-five years (though I do think he's had a few sub-standard offerings over the years, everyone has off-days after all) and I think this is up there with his best.
Bill Hodges is a retired police detective, lonely and bored without the job that made up his entire adult life. Mr Mercedes is the one that got away, the last big case of Bill's career. We as readers know his identity from the start (from the synopsis on the back cover, in fact) and we have to sit back and bite our nails as Bill Hodges is (unofficially) back on the case, hunting the guy down as he prepares to strike again. He's not a policeman any more, he doesn't even have a private detective licence, all he can do is use his brains and all those years of experience, and sail as close to the wind as he needs to.
As this was Stephen King, the characters felt like real people, the book itself was easy to read, and the cranking of tension was spot on. The only bit I didn't buy was a particular character having an AC/DC ringtone (same one as OneMonkey's, in fact) - he just didn't strike me as a metaller and it's never explained. I think we can agree that's a minor point though.
What struck me as particularly interesting (especially as, like I said, I've been reading Stephen King novels for close to a quarter of a century) was the amazing cultural disconnect I felt while I read this novel. All the other books I read last year that were wholly or partly set in America (of which there weren't many, actually - an interesting fact in itself) were set in a historical or alternative past - I can't think when I last read contemporary American fiction. Mainly it was the little things, characters reaching for their 'cell' rather than their 'mobile', or some TV channel or brand of beer I assume is real (because I did recognise some others) but haven't heard of. In what version of reality is chicken, gravy, biscuits and coleslaw an acceptable meal, let alone one you would buy as the default offering in a fast food restaurant? I'm fairly sure that 'biscuits' in this context doesn't mean what it means in the UK, but I honestly can't think of any plausible definition of biscuits that would make this make sense. Why on earth is getting someone cremated (not buried) a big deal, why would you mock up a coffin to look like metal (when they're usually wood, hence the term 'wooden overcoat') and is it usual for families to put corpses on display at a funeral home, where they then hold the service (rather than at a church or crematorium)? Fascinating, but oddly more foreign-feeling than all the Scandinavian crime novels I read last year.