Rob’s Book Reviews

Review of Dean Koontz’s The Husband

November 25th, 2006 at 10:16 pm (Fiction: Thrillers)

For many years Dean Koontz (and I still have paperbacks and hardbacks from the days when he was known as Dean R Koontz) has been among my top 5 favourite writers, one of those whose books I ritually buy as soon as the hardcover is released. I remember plenty of classics such as Strangers, Lightning, Phantoms, Twilight Eyes, Midnight, Intensity and one of my all time favourites, Whispers, among many others. I have been reading some reviews over the last few years that have berated Koontz latest offerings, and I can’t help but feel there are probably two schools of people in this – those who remember the old stuff, and those who are coming cold to the new stuff. In either case, it would be hard to put the “new stuff” up there with the best, and all I can suggest to those who read Koontz’s more recent offerings, is to go back and read Whispers or Strangers, because whatever he writes now, Koontz has written some of the best modern thriller fiction ever written.

Unfortunately, The Husband, although a good enough read, does not fit into the category of Koontz’s best. I know there are particular market forces that are driving even bestselling horror writers away from the spooky genre and into the more “mainstream thriller” but I cannot imagine why someone of Koontz’s reputation, wealth, and sheer publishing clout would need to depart quite so completely from the stuff that is his trademark. Even when they get bad, there are few Koontz books that I don’t thoroughly enjoy reading, because there is usually something to redeem it, whether it be pace, plot, or character; however in The Husband, I felt I had come across a book that hadn’t really been written by the Dean of suspense himself, but by a lesser mortal. That’s not to say it can’t be enjoyed on a flight or on the beach, or curled up on the sofa, but it certainly lacks the dynamite and that certain je ne sais quoi that permeates many of the better books. The book starts off with an interesting enough premise, a poor gardener is suddenly told his wife has been kidnapped and they want 2 million dollars from him, and to prove a point they shoot dead a complete stranger while he watches powerlessly. Although the guy has no money, he is told he will need to raise it or his wife dies, and from what we find out later, things that should pop into his head at that point simply don’t, and are kept parcelled up until the story finds it convenient to release them, which is one of its main flaws.

A lot of people have berated Koontz’s love of and trust in human nature, the “goody goodyness” of his heroes, but I have found on the main this to be a bearable trait, and have liked many of his good characters, especially the ones with flaws,and most of them have had at least some flaws to make them human. Unfortunately this fellow and his wife don’t appear to have any flaws, and they both love each other more than any couple have ever loved each other before, a fact which Koontz is at pains to keep reminding us of. It’s there that some of the realism is lost for me, as if you’re going through a divorce, having a rough time, are a lonely single, or in an unhappy marriage, it is hard to empathise with people who’s relationship is so perfect, so sweet, so sickly, that instead the opposite reaction might set in, and the reader could actually get a bit jealous and think, well, they got it soooo good, they need a little pain to join the rest of the human race! In any case, as I ploughed through the novel, for the first time in a Koontz offering (apart from, perhaps, the second half of The Taking), I found myself not particularly caring what happened, because the characters seemed so blessed, whatever bad things happened it was inevitable that there would be a happy ending.

In fact when the end does come, it comes rather quickly, and I felt some suspense could have been created and sustained, but even the final twist falls a bit flat. And certainly, Koontz has written mainstream books before (just plain old bad guy books), but they have usually contained bad guys with a twist, bad guys nobody else could have thought of – take the villain of Intensity, for example!

I didn’t know how this review was going to turn out when I started writing it, and I am a bit shocked at how negative it is. I think the problem is, if I had read The Husband and it had been by anyone else, I would have thought it an OK read, but I’ve probably been spoiled! Koontz is still one of my top 5 living authors, and I hope he writes to his full potential again, I have spent so many hundreds of happy hours on the edge of my bed reading Dean Koontz novels, and there are ones I will read again and again in years to come – One Door Away From Heaven, From the Corner of His Eye, Odd Thomas, Midnight, Whispers, Seize The Night (where the hell is the third book in that trilogy?!) and Watchers to name but a few. I am not sure what the rationale is behind producing stuff such as The Husband, but I do hope Koontz’s next offering will be more, well… more Koontz