Mr. Mercedes thought he had everything under control, but he underestimated the power of ex-detective Mr. Hodges.

Since last week, Hodges has been through a lot. While he was at Mrs. Wharton’s funeral, Brady put an explosive under Hodges’ car.

Hodges also made a connection with Janelle’s niece, Holly.

Holly was nervous to go into the funeral and was waiting outside when Hodges found her. They formed a quick bond as he listened to her fears and helped her calm down and go inside.

After the funeral ended, Janelle, Hodges, Janelle’s sister, Charlotte and Holly were going to go to Janelle’s house.

Hodges ended up driving with Holly and Charlotte — Holly wanted to sit with Hodges — so Janelle was going to drive Hodges’s car.

Brady of course was waiting to see Hodges’s car drive by so he could set off the explosive, but he didn’t notice Hodges wasn’t even in the car.

So he set off the explosive, killing Janelle.

This only pushed Hodges to make sure he was going to catch the Mercedes Killer.

With help from Jerome and Holly, they did some digging on the deceased Oliva’s computer and found out Brady had actually come to her house to help with a computer problem she had.

If you don’t remember, Brady works for a computer store similar to Best Buy in the “Geek Squad” department, so he would often go to people’s houses to help them with computer problems.

Hodges then suspected when Brady was at Olivia’s house, this was when he stole the key to her Mercedes.

So they went to the store Brady works at and asked a coworker for his address.

While Hodges was getting the address, Jerome actually recognized Brady from the store’s website, and made the connection that he also worked in an ice cream truck, and that’s how he was stalking Hodges.

After getting Brady’s address, they went to his house and my prediction from last week came true.

One of the neighbors was outside and told Hodges he hadn’t seen Deborah Ann come out for her mail in a while.

So, Hodges broke inside Brady’s house and immediately smelled Deborah Ann’s rotting body.

Through all of this, Brady stayed in a motel as he created his final plan. He was going to go to a local art museum wearing a vest with multiple bombs in it.

He was going to go on a busy morning to take as many people with him. Because, as he put it, people will remember him forever, which is exactly what he wants.

“Highest score ever,” author Stephen King wrote. “I’ll go down in history.”

Things are getting intense and I’m loving it. These recent chapters have been keeping me on the edge of my seat and I can’t wait to keep reading and see how/if they catch Brady.

I only have 90 more pages of the book, so I’ll be done with it by the time of next week’s “Book Club.”

But, I do wish the story had picked up a little earlier in the book.

The beginning and end have a lot of action and surprise but the middle was a little slow at times.

But that’s all I have for this week. Come back in two weeks to find out if Hodges, Jerome and Holly finally catch Mr. Mercedes.

Olson can be reached at [email protected].