Number 44 - End of Watch - stephen King

Late to the party on this one.  I'm playing catch up on King's more recent work.  Which is difficult since he's still putting out at least two books a year.

This is part three of the Bill Hodges trilogy - Mr Mercedes, Finders keepers and obviously this one.

Whilst the first two books were primarily non-supernatural detective thrillers, this one picks up on the couple of hints to abnormal possibilities and runs with them.

The villain from book one, Brady Hartsfield, was despatched by means of a sock full of ball bearings to the back of the head in the first book. However he survived, and, thanks to illegal drug experiments by his doctor, has developed powers to move items and psychically inhabit others. If you can get over that plot detail then this is a tense and fast moving thriller.

The characters are mostly familiar to us from the previous novels, although Jerome seems underused in this one. It's written in Kings usual easily digestible prose and doesn't let the pace flag.  The last 150 pages are up there with the best of King's pageturners.

Brady is a thoroughly detestable villain and Bill Hodges is a fine King hero, flawed but basically a good guy. The rest of the supporting cast are well drawn, although I think we could have been made to feel more sorry for Library Al if he'd been properly introduced in the previous books.

The only thing missing from this book was the sympathetic villain - like Cujo, who despite being terrifying was sympathetic throughout as we knew this wasn't his fault. Library Al would have filled that role admirably.

7/10