Dean Koontz Book Reviews

One of the only complaints I hear about Dean Koontz’s books is that so many of them do not completely end. They leave too much open and leaves everyone wanting a sequel. I, myself have seen this in many of his novels. This book ends beautifully. By the end of this novel all of my questions were answered sufficiently. This is one of the longer Koontz books, but it needs to be to tell the story. The heroes of the story are a married couple with two little girls. The little girls are your typical Koontz kids; cute but not annoying. The husband/father is a mystery writer and ends up having a man who looks exactly like him come to try and kill him to take ‘his’ family and life back. The wife/mother is a gun wielding tough chic who is also a knock out in the looks department (are you really surprised?). Even though this novel has shades of other characters and conspiracy, it is still unique unto itself and I highly recommend it. I think this book has a small tribute to Ayn Rand at the end of it, when one of the characters changes his name to John Gault –somehow, I don’t think this is a coincidence.

This is a very exciting story. This book does not have lulls, it remains exciting from page one the end. There is a group of characters in this story, all linked in the fact they are being stalked and tormented by a horrible villain.

The villain, is a man with God-like powers but a childish disposition. This makes him frightening for the obvious reason of the God-like powers, but also because he likes to play childlike games where he toys with his victims, driving them crazy before he then kills them. This is one villain who I do not feel sorry for. Normally, I feel a certain pity for Koontz’s villains because of their past. This villain has a sordid past, but I just don’t care- he is THAT evil.

The two main characters are two homicide detectives. They are partners and are the classic ‘good cop’ ‘bad cop’ pair. Connie, the ‘bad cop,’ has a love of freeness and a hate for people. She tries to close out the world to avoid all of the crime and atrocities that humankind creates. Harry, the ‘good cop,’ wants order in the world and became a cop to save humanity in hopes of reaching order in the world. Both of them keep the world at arms reach, but find themselves drawn closer as they are hunted by a new kind of villain that Harry can’t reason with and Connie can’t beat up.

Other characters are tormented by this monster. This IS a Koontz book with a heroic dog. There is also a street bum, who took a few wrong turns and has now wasted away to a wino. We have two other street people, a woman and her young boy, who are on the run from police (should they ever find the body). And last but not least we have an eyeless woman aged beyond her years by the constant torture of the evil villain.

This really is a great book. I would suggest it to everyone. There are some brutal scenes in this, but they add to the story and the unfolding of just how evil this villain is. Trust me, this is one you want to read.

I enjoyed reading this book. It had a few different stories within the one. It started with the car accident. It covered the couple getting on with life through adoption. There was a doctor and his team who had found a way to bring people back from the dead. We had the psychopath who was mentally linked with the good guy. All of these stories were great and meshed well with each other. I did not care for the ending of this book. So many great stories came to a very abrupt ending that left me puzzled more than pleased. Overall, it was a very good story and I enjoyed it, I just think that the ending left something to be desired.

Home/ Back to Koontz Reviews