Finders Keepers

Definitely suffers from not having Hodges as a starting character, instead reserving him and other familiar names from Mr. Mercedes till the back half of the book. Morris Bellamy is nowhere near as riveting and layered as Brady Hartsfield, which causes the plot to move quite slowly, and the tension to be quite tame. I do find it interesting that King dabbles into some thematic realms of art, artist, and admirer; with the antagonist essentially killing a world famous author because he had gripes with his style. And don't worry, this is info included in the synopsis, not a spoiler.

My friend has informed me that S02 of the Mr. Mercedes show is actually loosely integrates End of Watch (the third book in the Hodges trilogy), whereas S03 is a loose adaptation of Finders Keepers. So I guess I have to finish reading the trilogy before I can even start S02 of the show. Luckily for me, by coincidence it looks like we're getting a new Stephen King book soon, related to a character from this trilogy: Holly. Perfect timing.

As soon as I finished listening to the audio-book of "Mr. Mercedes," I immediately put this audio-book right into my ears. I was eager to hear what these endearing characters - Bill, Holly and Jerome were up to in this 2nd installment. I liked the focus on unpublished journals containing the fourth and fifth novels in one of the greatest character arcs ever published in the world of this book (and reminiscent of the Rabbit books by John Updike in our own world.) And, as a dedicated reader myself, I could relate to the (obsessive) desire multiple characters have to "know what comes next" for a fictional character who has inspired them as much as a real person might. I feel the build up to the conclusion was too slow and I didn't connect much with the two main characters who drove the plot (and weren't in Mr. Mercedes.) While this second novel in a trilogy wasn't a masterpiece like "The Empire Strikes Back" was it it's trilogy, it was still an enjoyable listen. And a valuable one before diving into the amazing third book "End of Watch."

So let me say firstly, Finders Keepers is a good book.
I've scored Finders Keepers lower than I was hoping purely down to the slow start, I love this trilogy mainly because of Bill Hodges and his friends (Holly & Jerome) so when they didn't pop up for the first 100 pages or, so I wasn't confident I would enjoy Finders Keepers as much as Mr Mercedes.
That being said, this book has a great ending and when it got going I couldn't put it down, if the start has been quicker this would easily be a four-star book!
Finders Keepers does a great job at showing how far obsession can push a bad person over the edge causing them to do terrible things, but in their mind things that need to be done.
The antagonist wasn't up to the Mr Mercedes level in my opinion but the more time spent with him the more he grew on me, this is a good sequel but for me doesn't live up to Mr Mercedes, luckily End of Watch was brilliant so the series ends well!