Just Finished Reading Stephen King's End of Watch

End of Watch is the final book in Stephen King's Bill Hodges Trilogy, published earlier this year.  The first book was Mr. Mercedes, the second was Finders Keepers...and here we are at last with the ending.  When I first read Mr. Mercedes a couple of years ago (this series was written and published in rapid order), I did not know whether or not the protagonist Bill Hodges, a retired detective with assorted serious medical issues, would survive it.  Afterwards, though, the name "Bill Hodges Trilogy" kind of gave that away, and then I knew that it wouldn't be until the final volume when his life would truly be endangered.  And to be sure, he is in grave peril in End of Watch, and on more than one front...

The problem with reviewing a book further along in a series is that, by discussing the plot and characters to any appreciable extent, I am unwittingly giving away some of what happens in earlier books.  I'd like folks who read this blog and who feel like reading Mr. Mercedes or Finders Keepers not to be dissuaded from doing so because I spoiled it all for them.  But the ending of Mr. Mercedes directly ties into the narrative and characters of End of Watch...the two are inextricably intertwined.  So let me instead speak in more general terms...

End of Watch deals with a number of topics woven into the story, probably the chief of them being the suggestibility of suicide and the possibility of mass hypnosis via the Internet.  With suicide, I think a lot of people would just as soon not talk about it for the fear that by doing so, they are putting its possibility into others' minds.  Stephen King obviously does not agree: he starkly presents the problem center-stage and challenges the reader to face up to it.  Subliminal Internet hypnosis is also something that we don't quite understand as of yet...King has put forth the notion that it might be implemented through video games.  I've seen some ads for some of them pop up on my cellphone while I'm trying to play Solitaire on it and I have to admit that a few of them, as primitive as they appear on the surface, are visually very intense with strobe-like effects...

There, I don't think I gave anything away...but if you're game enough to plow through this series to this final book, maybe you can provide your own reaction to it and what you feel Stephen King was trying to convey.  It's a good story, but not for the faint of heart...