Whew, I finally finished End of Watch and man… It’s been more than twenty-four hours and I’m still messed up about it. King definitely has a way of drawing the reader in, even if said reader is as nihilistic as me when it comes to developing character attachments. Unlike Finders Keepers, book two of the trilogy, King dives right into continuing the story with our main characters, Bill, Holly, and Jerome rather than beginning from the left field as he had with the Saubers family and the Rothstein manuscripts.
The Mercedes Killer himself, Brady Hartsfield, is back thanks to the help of Dr. Babineau. Desiring to truly earn his name as the Suicide Prince, he continues on his rampage of convincing people to kill themselves. His bitterness towards Hodges is stronger than ever and our trio of heroes soon find themselves within the scope of Harsfeild’s thirst for blood.
This time around, we aren’t really introduced to a whole ton of new characters. In fact, the majority of characters in End of Watch we’ve already met. Because of that, King is able to jump right into the action and wastes no time in doing what King does best: keeping the reader on the edge of their seat. (Not counting From a Buick 8, of course, but let’s not get into that. I’d review it, but I don’t even want to pick it up again, let alone buy it.)
Other than that I really don’t have a whole lot to say about the final installment in this series that I haven’t already said on the books before it. I loved the fact that we were able to immediately return to the story that was left open ended at the conclusion of Mr. Mercedes, rather than being dragged through the filler episode that was Finders Keepers. (I couldn’t think of a much better way to word that because before I turned to reviewing books, I spent quite a bit of time reviewing anime and if you’ve ever watched the mainstream, popular series you know exactly what I mean.) I would have felt alright for the most part if I had skipped Finders Keepers, as it plays a very small role outside of the company being created.
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