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 was 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 ...
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[It's always darkest before dawn.]***
(Hodder & Stoughton, 7 June 2016, bought from Amazon)
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I read this for 2017 Popsugar Reading Challenge. The category is 'a book written by someone you admire'.***
I enjoyed End of Watch. I really didn't like Mr Mercedes at all and loved Finders Keepers. End of Watch falls somewhere in the middle.
There are some good moments in this book, as Hodges and Holly move ever closer to finally closing the case that brought them together and changed them in profound ways.
Some things didn't work for me. I didn't completely buy into the fact Brady had some sort of special powers, that may or may not have been triggered by his brain injury. A psychotic murder with mind control powers? Nope, not for me. I would have enjoyed the book a lot better is Brady had made some kind of miraculous recovery from his brain injury or had been fooling everyone from the start.
Cynicism aside, there are some great set pieces in End of Watch as Brady determine to finish what he started when he got behind the wheel of a Mercedes so many years before. There are some chilling, unsettling moments as his single-minded madness is revealed.
End of Watch is a satisfying novel and worth a read.
