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I am a fan of Dean Koontz and for this novel he goes back to his early days of writing supernatural thrillers after years of writing novels where mainly psychopathic killers take centre stage. Of course you can have supernatural psychopathic killers too, and we have one in this book. As a teenager, homicide Detective John Calvino is the only survivor from one horrific night when his entire family were massacred. John killed his family's murderer, (who had also massacred three other families besides the Calvino family.) But now twenty years later the killings start again, being near replicas of the original ones. The characters are stereotypic Koontz characters; flawed and guilt ridden main character with a beautiful and perfect wife, perfect intelligent, near genius kids, one of them psychic, and of course the "best ever golden retriever in the whole world." In contrast there's the evil villain, often without motive who's only main purpose is to kill, maim and cause maximum distress. So we have a story of obsession, possession, murder, revenge and inherent evil. Often cruel, with little if any humour to lighten the load. It's also an allegory with quite a few existential questions lurking beneath the text; and so like another reviewer here, I too found it a little heavy going in parts. Up to around chapter 23, there are some really spooky goings on and it has the makings of a very fine ghost story. However it changes drift a little as the spirit of the psychopathic killer "goes to town', as it were, causing mayhem and murder. At this point it becomes less of a ghost story and more of a teenage slasher story. Also, I would have liked to have seen the character of Calvino's detective partner developed more and playing a bigger part in this story. As it is, he appears to have no real purpose in the book. After an almost nondescript start, he briefly turns up from behind the scenes again when the action is nearing it's climax, but then inexplicably disappears altogether from the story. But in spite of a few misgivings I liked this book. Yes I would recommend it to seasoned Koontz Fans. If you're not familiar with Koontz, read some other novel of his too so you can get a broader idea of what My Koontz is capable of. And you may consider reading his novella "Darkness Under the Sun" which is a kind of prequel to this novelRead full review
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