Review: End of Watch

End of Watch by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After the magnificence of Mr Mercedes, and the slight letdown of Finders Keepers, the final chapter of the Bill Hodges trilogy was, for me, a return to form. Sure, whereas the first two books were pretty much straight detective/drama novels, which for me were a fantastic read, the addition of a paranormal aspect to this story does in fact just come as a natural progression to the story being told, and doesn't feel like a cop out in the slightest. No pun intended.
Once again King has written characters of depth, drawn you in and given you a reason to care what happens to them - either in a good way or a bad way. That's the great thing about his writing, perhaps a character is the bad guy or evil, but you can still be rooting for them in the long run.
On first reading (and as with all of his books, there will be plenty more in the years to come) I enjoyed this thoroughly, enjoyed the plot twists, and the fact that I found it hard to put down every night, and indeed picked it up during the afternoons to complete, is as good an indication as any. No skipped pages, no flouncing over the words in order to get to the conclusion as quickly as possible, but a concerted effort to read this at a pace where I was able to enjoy the flow of the story and yet still get to the conclusion in a swift period of time.
Is the ending predictable? Whether or not you think it is, if it is done well, what does it matter? This is done well, as the majority of King's work is. I must say I enjoyed the detective novel trilogy, and won't be disappointed if King goes down this track again in the future.

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