I have been in a cranky mood this week so I don’t know if it was me or this book but I AM CRANKY. Every time his neighbor went into Jerome Feel-good Delight mode – CRANK, The ridiculously unbelievable love story shoe horned in so they could kill the woman off to give the main character more of a reason to catch the bad guy – CRANK, all of the clunky racist dialoged from the killer – CRANK, n-word this, n-word that, n-work, n-word, n-word- CRANK, CRANK, CRANK. The main character thinking that a woman looks really good for their age, then thinking oh wait they do look their age- CRANK, This is said about the unbelievable love interest that is 20 years younger than the main character – CRANK, This great looking (for her age) woman is so turned on by a 20 years older detective who is described as so fat he split his pants because she has a thing for old detective movies – CRANK. cartoonish one note relatives- CRANK, the detective getting self reflective that he and his partner might have done shoddy detective work then continuing to do shoddy detective work- CRANK, Ret Det, Ret Det, Ret Det repeated constantly- CRANK CRANK CRANK
The book starts with the killer driving into a crowd of job seekers outside of a job fair with a stolen Mercedes. He is not caught and the case remains open when Detective Bill Hodges retires. Several months into a retirement he is not enjoying he receives a letter from the Mercedes Killer taunting him towards suicide. Instead it gives him something to live for and he sets out to catch the killer. A depressed ex-detective getting a reason to live and going after the killer, so far none of this is making me cranky. Then as he gets further into his investigation the story looses me and I drive my Mercedes into Cranky-ville. He follows old trails and lucks into some leads when looking into the Mercedes that was used. There was suspicion of the woman who owned the car since there was no forced entry. During the investigation he is hired by the sister of the woman who owned the Mercedes to clear her sisters name. CRANK CRANK CRANK. They solve the mystery, the cranky end.