End of Watch

End of Watch (2016) is the third installment of Stephen King’s Bill Hodges trilogy, preceded by Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers. King has described the first book of the series, Mr. Mercedes, as his first hard-boiled detective story. End of Watch is followed by The Outsider (2018) and Holly (2023), both of which also feature Holly Gibney, one of the protagonists of End of Watch.

A TV series based on Mr. Mercedes premiered on August 9th, 2017, and Season 2 presented a loose adaptation of End of Watch. King has won more than 30 awards for his fiction. His books and short stories have been made into 39 films (with another 16 planned as of 2023) and 13 television series (with seven more in planning). He has written nine of the screen adaptations himself and made cameo or voice appearances in 11 movies, including one in which he played himself.

This guide refers to the Scribner Kindle Edition.

Content Warning: This guide contains extensive discussion of death by suicide and mass murder, which feature in the source text.

Plot Summary

Six years before the beginning of End of Watch, Brady Hartsfield stole a gray Mercedes and ran it into a crowd outside City Center.