If you read my last couple of Koontz reviews you’ll know I was pretty disappointed with The husband, but felt some of the spark returning when I read The Good Guy. So it was that I bought Darkest Evening of the Year on release date, and despite a busy schedule made the time to read the first few chapters, feeling strangely that this book was going to pack the punch that had been lacking in Koont’z previous two offerings.
I’m happy to say I was not wrong! The Darkest Evening of the Year sees Dean Koontz back on form as far as I am concerned, with a spooky and mysterious novel that I was happy to lose myself in over a few nights (I used to read such books over 1 or 2 sittings, but circumstances are different at the moment!). In any case, I was hooked on the plotline, and was pulled forward into the narrative, wanting to know what happened next, and somewhat seduced by Koontz’s sharp, crystal-crafted prose (whatever criticisms are levelled at Koontz, his descriptive powers are second to none)
So, what is the story about? Central character, with a mysterious past, Amy Redwing, dedicates her life to saving endangered Golden Retrievers, and has founded an organisation for just this purpose. Even among dog lovers, she’s a legend for the risks she’ll take to save an animal. One night she ends up at a home where an abusive drunk is doing his thing with wife and daughter, and offers him a large sum for the dog, as the wife and kid are getting out of there – in fact Amy puts herself at considerable risk, but there appears to be an immediate and uncanny bond between this new dog, Christened Nickie, and Amy.
But these happy dog rescuing events are thrown into doubt by some sinister and eerie incidents. An ominous stranger is following Amy, and her home is invaded and robbed of certain items – it appears Amy’s mysterious past may be catching up with her, and her boyfriend Brian has secrets of his own too. As the story progresses, the mystery unravels chapter by chapter, and it was this rush of wanting me to find out what was behind it all that kept me turning the pages.
This novel has a lot of stuff going on, twisted plotlines, shocking events – random murder, sexual perversion, child torture and infanticide; but somehow the characters of Amy and Nickie the Goldren retriever offer some kind of redemption. I will not be forgetting the supremely evil but beautiful Moon Girl in a hurry, one of the baddest girls I’ve come across in a book for a while, and the cold and merciless Harrow also makes the blood run cold. There’s also a strange hybrid character in the form of Billy Pilgrim, who despite being a cold blooded cyncial killer, also appears eminently likeable in a lot of ways, and I love one bit where Koontz, highly aware of plenty of recent criticism on the boards and book reviews sites, muses through the character on some of the benefits of not having become a writer, which was the killer’s initial ambition 
The novel does suffer slightly, I feel from an ending that seems rather rushed, and the introduction of deus ex machina may detract from its success to an extent (then again it is nice to see the supernatural element return to Koontz, where it belongs) but like they say, it’s the journey, not the destination that matters, and Dean Koontz’s The Darkest Evening of the Year took me on a narrative ride that I haven’t enjoyed so much in ages.
Just one word of warning, if you don’t like dogs, and have a gripe against dog lovers, this may not quite be the book for you!
I look forward to the next in the Odd Thomas Series, Odd Hours, to be released this summer!
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If you read my review of Dean Koontz’s The Husband, you’ll know I was pretty disappointed with that offering in the canon of Koontz latest works. Nevertheless, I still felt a frisson of excitement when I picked up the latest Koontz books (I will be reviewing the Darkest Evening of the Year no sooner than I have read it!) and settled down the read The Good Guy with a mixture of hope, trepidation and anticipation!
I am glad to say that The Good Guy by Dean Koontz is a far superior offering to The Husband, although I will stop short of saying that it’s Koontz back to his imimitable best (the guy has written some 90 novels, so he can perhaps be forgiven if they are not all up to magnum opus standards!). In any case, this was a book I really did enjoy reading, and if it doesn’t go back to Koontz’s creepy suspense roots entirely, it is steered in that direction by a pretty nasty and creepy antagonist in the form of killer for hire Krait.
The premise of the novel is a simple enough one of mistaken identity. Tim Carrier, a simple enough on the surface stone mason, is enjoying a quiet beer after work, when a stranger enters the bar and mistakes him for a killer for hire, giving him an envelope stuffed with cash and a photo of the victim, a woman named Linda Paquette. Perturbed, Tim tries to abort this mission by waiting for the real hitman to show up, and telling him the deal’s off – which buys him some time to get to the intended victim, and warn her. What ensues is a thrilling cat and mouse chase, with the dangerous and crazy contract killer determined not only to kill Linda and Tim, and end their blossoming relationship, but also to make them suffer.
I did enjoy reading The Good Guy (which seems to be a new Koontz sub genre, the good, quiet man with a simple life but a secretly exciting or dangerous past) and the prose was a pleasure to sit through, clean and crisp. The characters were interesting and not too simple, and Krait, the cold blooded, creepy, insanely civilised and yet death hungry killer, was a dark joy to experience. If you can forgive one or two substantial holes and some slightly frayed loose ends (one wonders how these get past the publishers’ editors, as they are spotted right away by amazon reviewers and everybody who reads the books), then this is a good old cat and mouse chase type thriller that will occupy a good chunk of your reading time
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Michael Palmer’s Miracle Cure is just one of several Michael Palmer books I’ve read lately, so I have a stack of reviews to add to this blog! This medical thriller is among the best Palmer books I have read so far, although they are all fantastic, and I eagerly await a few spare hours to read the latest releases!
The story of Miracle Cure is told, in third person narrative, largely from the point of view of its central character, Dr Brain Holbrook, a cardiologist who is on his way back from alcholism and addiction to prescription painkillers. Given a second chance, Holbrook starts work at Boston’s most prestigious heart unit – rapidly gaining even more Kudos for its involvement in drug testing for the new cardiovascular miracle cure, Vasclear, a substance the reportedly reverses arterial plaque and virtually eliminates heart attack risk within weeks. Holbrook is especially keen since his father has already had one bypass operation, and is deteriorating.
Holbrook is not in a position to risk his new job, afterall, it may be his one and only chance to still be a doctor. But he cannot help but notice when Vasclear patients begin to die – and not always from natural causes. Holbrook appears to be on to something sinister, and his suspicions are confirmed when first come the warnings, and then the threats, leading him to discover the sinister truth behind Vasclear…
I really enjoyed escaping into this long novel, and spent a couple of pleasant afternoons sunk into the story. Holbrook is a very believable character, certainly not two dimensional like many fictional character, with his own problems and foibles. The story is at times tragic, but always exciting, with plenty of twists and turns to keep even the most seasoned thriller reader guessing!
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Another crime fiction thriller hot on the heels of my last book review, and in this thriller crime fiction guru James Patterson teams up with old partner Andrew Gross to smelt another scorching story from the word processor! Judge & Jury stars features the unlikely heroine of a reluctant member of a jury Andie DeGrasse in a mob case, and in Nick Pellisante, FBI Agent, we find the hero, as they end up pursuing their own brand of justice when the system fails them and Dominick Cavallo escapes punishment from the law…
Whatever literary purists may say, James Patterson’s (and his co authors’) thrillers are incredibly accesible books and make fiction available to those who might otherwise not have an hour to site and wade through lengthy chapters of interminable prose! The books are fast paced and incredibly easy to read – on the train, in a lunch hour, even while a bowl of pasta cooks! I love escaping into these novels for short dips or long chunks, and am always ready for the next James Patterson!
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Been getting into reading thrillers again lately, and in this field James Patterson needs no introduction as perhaps the master practioner of the genre at this moment in time! Cross stars (for I like to think of these books as written in a very cinematic style!) that stalwart old favourite Alex Cross in what is billed as the most terrifying and most emotional Cross ever, weaving together elements of the past and present to create a mixture of intrigue, tragedy, shock and resolution. As you might expect from a Patterson novel (I won’t add the the number of superlatives such as unputdownable, or the lightsocket image) the pages turn fast, and I was as intrigued by the story of the vicious Butcher, Michael Sullivan, as I was disturbed by this callous, terrible villain.
All in all a jolly good read for these cold winter nights, and the next Cross novel is already out in hardback! Cross is high octane, high adrenaline fiction, one of the best Alex Cross novels to date – read and see what you’re missing if your unfamiliar with the Cross series!
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Stephen King has been my number one storyteller ever since I read Carrie way back when I was 10 years old; to a large extent, it was Stephen King who switched me on to the world of books as I sat, wide eyed, reading a very grown up book. Carrie wasn’t his best novel, but it was his first, and my first, so to speak. Ever since then, I have spent hundreds of happy hours immersed in Stephen King’s stories. Sometimes, the stories have not been believable – but the storytelling has made them so, and it has always been the storytelling that switches things on for me, rather than the the story itself. For sure, the stories have been and are intriguing, but what I have relished is the voice, the narrator, the sensual language that creates such rich thoughts and feelings in my head. King’s characters, too, have been part of the rich tapestry of his fiction, but always the language, the attention to detail, the sense that I am not reading a book but listening to an old friend, bringing the characters to life, really feeling a sense of how King believes he uncovers a story rather than creates it.
I was quite surprised to read some of the reviews on Amazon of Lisey’s Story, finding a lot of readers disappointed. Personally I have never been disappointed with a King book, as I always come to them with an open mind, and respect a writer who doesn’t churn out fodder for the bestseller lists, but who writes from the heartmind. Every King book is going to be a little different, he tries new things which may or may not disappoint the constant reader, and in my opinion it usually works, and even his weaker works are way better than the best most writers can output. Ok, so you know I’m biased, but I loved this story, Lisey’s story…
King has tried his hand at pretty much every genre there is, and Lisey’s Story is essentially a love story – but a love story with Kingian twists, especially so as the love story is told from a posthumous perspective, therefore making it also a story of grief. Through Lisey Landon, widow of bestselling author Scott Landon, we learn of a marriage that has its highs and its lows, its beauties and its terrors, and there are many small touches that give our glimpse into the world of the marriage intimacy and reality. Yet the story is as much about the present as the past, and there is plenty going on in the widow Landon’s life to keep her occupied. As I read I felt that the story is as much a ghost story as it is a romance and a thriller – for Scott Landon, although two years deceased at the the start of the novel, has a presence through Lisey’s memory that makes him as much a central character as Lisey.
Lisey’s Story is not a thrill a minute roller coaster ride as some King novels can be, nor is it filled with gore and insane characters (although there are some!) But the novel is haunting, and progresses at a quiet, unhurried rate, and as always with King novels, I come to care about Lisey very quickly, for it is with the language and the beautiful storytelling that King manages to make his characters so real, so quickly – and this was another old tale by an old friend that I thoroughly enjoyed reading
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To the paternally or maternally minded, the question “Is there any point having children?” must seem ludicrous, not to say unnatural, but there are people who ask this question. To echo Lionel Schriver in We Need To Talk About Kevin, if you’re in your mid thirties, successful, and happily married, why complicate things by having offspring – why RUIN things, in fact. Ok, people speak of bringing a little bundle of joy into the world, making new life – but little bundles of joy tend ot pee and puke and vomit quite a lot, never mind the fact they soon grow up, and end up being not so little bundles of hormones, aggression, neuroses and if parents are really unlucky, criminal violence. I have personally seen several colleagues on the verge of burnout due to the problems they’ve had with troublesome teenagers who were true angels until they reached that somehow magical number of years, and indeed who have been so well brought up, with all they could need and want, that their rebellious “wish you were all dead” natures could not possibly be a result of nurture, but indeed seeing as it doesn’t run in the family, how does nature come into it? The nature versus nurture concept is one raised in the book by this incisive writing in the epistolary format with an incisive style and at times remarkable turn of phrase; as she writes a series of letters to her husband, we are given a disturbing look into a pair of lives where the only way to find an answer to the question “is there any point having children” is to actually have one, and while the book sees this question answered to some extent by the end, at least from the narrator’s point of view, the answer is by no means clear. One thing we do learn is that having a difficult child, indeed having a child at all, can be one hell of a ride.
I had not read anything by Shriver before, as I usually stick to certain genres, so I am grateful to my friend Louise for giving me the volume for my birthday. The book certainly raises as many questions as it answers – and in particular the fact that one of the protagonists is also the sole narrator of events, giving us cause to question perhaps how much the truth has been edited for the sake of her pride, respect in the eyes of the reader, or sanity. Still, as much as some will detest this woman, despise her, I found myself enjoying the process of getting to know her, for although she might not have the happiest tale to tell, she tells it honestly (even if she hides some things, the things she does tell are told in technicolor) and even brutally, and has an almost poisonous wit at times. As I am not a mother I can only guess at what mothers will think of her, especially at some very particular moments – do they emphathise with her, sympathise, understand her? Or do they unconsciously do these things while their conscious censor forces them to despise her, to say “No mother could be like that…” Very intriguing – I certainly hope Schriver isn’t drawing on personal experience lest her offspring read the book and become damaged
The writing is well done and thoughtfully constructed, with a style that is polished and economical, falling just this side of the “literary”, although tabloid enthusiasts may struggle. The story itself has a number of, if not twists, at least brutal turns for the unexpected. I am not sure if other Lionel Schriver books are in a similar vein to this one, but based on this evidence of We need to talk about Kevin, I would certainly be willing to give another one a try. Thanks very much Louise for an enjoyable and though-provoking read for my Birthday
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