History Literature / MrMercedes

* EvilSoundsDeep: Harry Treadaway as Brady in the TV series. It's considerably less pronounced and dramatic than most examples, but his voice is still a low, unnervingly calm baritone.

* UngratefulBastard: In the TV series Jerome finds out that his father is struggling financially and takes it upon himself to buy some groceries to help out. When his father finds out he goes crazy and angrily chews Jerome out for "taking his job". Even if his frustration is understandable the way he vents it makes him seem both very ungrateful and needlessly harsh.

[[Series/MrMercedes A series adaptation]], starring Creator/BrendanGleeson and Creator/HarryTreadaway as detective and killer respectively, premiered on AT&T's Audience Network on August 9, 2017. Originally intended as a miniseries, additional seasons adapted the later books in the series. Following the Audience network's discontinuation, the show's distribution rights were acquired by Creator/{{Peacock}}, though no forthcoming season has been announced.

* ShoutOut: Because the TV series omits Hodges' Happy Slapper, [[spoiler: Holly instead caves Brady's head in using [[Literature/{{Misery}} an animal figurine]]]].

* PetTheDog: Despite being an unrepentant murderer nearly completely devoid of empathy, Show!Brady seems to legitimately regard his coworker Lou (Freddi in the books) as something of a friend. He makes an effort to cheer her up when she's run ragged by a flagrantly homophobic regular at their workplace...[[spoiler:[[AssholeVictim and later murders the customer in question to make him pay for ridiculing the two of them]]]].
* PoliceAreUseless: In general throughout the book one can get this impression in regards to their inability to solve the Mercedes-murder. Downplayed however in that they do solve some other mayor cases (see HeroOfAnotherStory above), and justified near the end because then they're distracted with the results of a major bust, leaving it up to the heroes to stop Brady on their own.

* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler: Anthony Frobisher - Brady's stuck-up, casually homophobic boss - survives the book without a scratch. In the series, Brady ambushes him in his own home and rather graphically caves his head in with a hammer.]]
** [[spoiler: Pete, Hodges ex-partner, survives the books and is mentioned as alive in The Outsider, dies in the premiere episode of season 2.]]

** Thanks to the omission of the Slapper, the TV series instead shows us a rather unconventional use for a cast-bronze bulldog statuette. [[spoiler: As above, Brady is also given this lesson.]]

** Show-only character Ryan Springhill is an unstable, loud-mouthed [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain Neo-Nazi and homophobe]] [[spoiler: whose brutal vehicular homicide at Brady's hands is ''entirely'' more satisfying than it should be]].

* AbusiveParents: On one hand, one could understand the stress of Deborah Ann when it comes to handling Frankie once he became mentally disabled, perhaps even giving her a bit of leeway for occasionally getting mad with her afflicted son. But on the other hand, [[spoiler:kicking his firetruck down the basement stairs and then nodding for her other son Brady to kick Frankie down said stairs, and then to lie about what really happened]] says other things.

* AdaptationPersonalityChange: Mostly minor ones, but still present. The TV series presents Bill as being both grumpier and more psychologically damaged in the aftermath of Brady's killing spree and his own failure to bring Brady to justice. In addition - and perhaps mercifully - the show completely adapts out Jerome's "Tyrone" persona. However, some of the most prominent changes can be seen in Brady himself. In the book, King establishes him as a dead-set, [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain bigoted]] sociopath, whereas Show!Brady is more classically ''insane,'' displaying the tiniest flashes of compassion in his madness and apparently possessing legitimate affection for his coworker Lou (Freddi in the books). He's also much more openly repulsed by his relationship with his mother, actually rejecting her advances at one point.
* AdaptationalHeroism: The TV series adapts out most of Bill's vengeful, hard-headed drive to catch Brady on his own, making him seem vastly less reckless and selfish than his book counterpart.
* AdaptationalNationality: In order to reconcile Creator/BrendanGleeson's unshakable Irish accent with his character, the TV series presents Bill as an Irish immigrant who came to the United States in his late teens.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Countering Show!Brady's less-psychopathic personality, the TV series gives him a ''much'' higher body count (eighteen at City Center as opposed to eight, plus his onscreen murders of [[spoiler: Ryan Springhill and Anthony Frobisher]]). He also [[spoiler: deliberately kills Janey, rather than doing it by accident, as another means to drive Bill toward suicide]].

A series adaptation, starring Creator/BrendanGleeson and Creator/HarryTreadaway as detective and killer respectively, premiered on AT&T's Audience Network on August 9, 2017. Originally intended as a miniseries, additional seasons adapted the later books in the series. Following the Audience network's discontinuation, the show's distribution rights were acquired by Creator/{{Peacock}}, though no forthcoming season has been announced.

''Mr. Mercedes'' is the first installment in King's Hodges Trilogy. The second volume, ''Literature/FindersKeepers'', was released in 2015, and the third, ''Literature/EndOfWatch'', was released in 2016.

* OddFriendship: Jerome Robinson and Holly Gibney quickly become this. He's a seventeen-year-old black teenage prodigy, she's a middle aged mentally unstable white woman, together TheyFightCrime

* AmbiguousDisorder: Or not so ambiguous, because Holly is presented as fairly clearly autistic on top of her lifelong sheltering, with a not-insignificant helping of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and severe anxiety on the side. The sequel makes the former even less ambiguous, with one narration addressing her tics as "Asperger's-like".

* AdultFear: Deborah Ann's younger son Frankie choking on an apple slice. Her almost hysterical behavior makes sense, [[spoiler: even though her attempt at grabbing the slice only made the situation worse]]. And then Frankie is in a coma. [[spoiler: He eventually wakes up, but is permanently brain-damaged.]]

* AgeLift: Holly is considerably younger in the TV series (31 as opposed to 45), likely as a means to emphasize her eventual role as a surrogate daughter figure to Hodges and to remove the books' ambiguity as to the nature of their relationship.

* BadassBeard: Creator/BrendanGleeson portrays Hodges with a thick gray beard in the TV series. Knowing Hodges' mental state in this book, a touch of BeardOfSorrow may be involved.

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: [[spoiler:Janey is killed in an attack meant for Bill.]]

** Charlotte Gibney is a much more cut-and-dry example, degrading and downsizing Holly's psychological issues and insistently treating her like a child. The narration makes it plain that Holly's life is awful and her mental state is in a constant flux - and that Charlotte is more or less to blame for all of it.

* AdultFear: Deborah Ann's younger son Frankie choking on an apple slice. Her almost hysterical behavior makes sense, [[spoiler: even though her attempt at grabbing the slice only made the situation worse]]. And then Frankie is in a coma. [[spoiler: He eventually wakes up, but is permanently braindamaged.]]

* BaitAndSwitch: The first half of the novel plays like a straight detective thriller, but then the story drops hints that Olivia Trelawney might be literally haunted by two of the victims of Brady's massacre, a mother and her baby; a plot idea certainly not out of step with King's usual faire. As it turns out, [[spoiler:she is not being haunted; Brady has hacked her computer to play specific sound files to make her feel like she's being haunted, all part of his plan to drive her to suicide.]]

* PragmaticVillainy: Brady repeatedly considers the idea of poisoning his ice cream supply and has even researched it. But he refrains from actually doing it due to knowing he'd be pinpointed and arrested. For the same reason, when he's making a service call to Mrs. Rollins (a rich woman who frequently has trouble with her computer) and she leaves him alone in her house, he doesn't use the opportunity to steal her juwels, knowing too well that he will be the most likely suspect when the theft is discovered.

* RealityEnsues: [[spoiler:For all his badassery, Hodges eventually becomes overwhelmed by the stress of the situation, not helped by his weight problems, and suffers (but survives) a heart attack that forces him to back down from nabbing Hartsfield.]]
** Also [[spoiler: his off-the-books campaign leads to his being legally banned from ever acquiring an official private investigator's license.]]
** The voice recognition Brady put on the basement lights and his laptop computers to make sure only he can give them the start-up commands is not 100% fault proof, since anyone whose voice is a close enough match to his can fool it.
** As mentioned in PragmaticVillainy, Brady entertains various big crimes as an encore to his initial mass murder, but ends up dismissing them all because he realises how easily he would be caught and because he lacks the means or opportunity to pull it off. He is also genuinely amazed that he was never caught for his first crime and spent weeks afterwards expecting the police to show up at his door.

* InfantImmortality: Subverted. One of the victims in Brady's first attack is an infant. [[spoiler:He also murdered his younger brother Frankie when they were children.]]

* BlackBestFriend: Jerome, a teenage prodigy who helps Hodges mow his lawn and handle his computer, is considered as such in the narrative.

A series adaptation, starring Creator/BrendanGleeson and Creator/HarryTreadaway as detective and killer respectively, premiered on AT&T's Audience Network on August 9, 2017. Following the Audience network's discontinuation, the series' distribution rights were acquired by Creator/{{Peacock}}, though no forthcoming season has been announced.

A miniseries adaptation, starring Creator/BrendanGleeson and Creator/HarryTreadaway as detective and killer respectively, premiered on AT&T's Audience Network on August 9, 2017. A third season, which will ChannelHop the show to Creator/{{Peacock}}, is also upcoming, which will reportedly finally adapt the previously-skipped ''Finders Keepers''.

A miniseries adaptation, starring Creator/BrendanGleeson and Creator/HarryTreadaway as detective and killer respectively, premiered on AT&T's Audience Network on August 9, 2017. It's due for a third season as of this writing, which will reportedly finally adapt the previously-skipped ''Finders Keepers''.

* SmugSnake: Brady when everything is going his way, when MaskOfSanity starts slipping he begins to lose his cool.