Dean Koontz - The Good Guy

Dean Koontz, who I first discovered as a "horror writer", much prefers to be thought of as a THRILLER writer, and it's books like this one that have established him firmly in that genre. There is nothing at all supernatural or other-worldly in this page-turner, unless you include a psychopath's occasional mental meanderings. I hope this gets picked up for a movie, because it would make a fantastic visual production.

One of the things I LOVE about Koontz is his characters. They are always special in some way. The overall plot of this story (which you will know just from reading the jacket and first few pages) involves a mix-up with a hired killer, an uninvolved bystander (or "bysitter" in this case), and the proposed killee. The last two have extremely interesting backstories, which we do not learn until the end, thus providing a LOT of suspense. The Killer, sans any backstory that even HE can recall, is simply so odd and contradictory as to be completely mesmerizing as a character, providing additional suspense. The plot - basically a harrowing cat-and-mouse chase throughout, tips the suspense scale over to "tilt".

PLOT SYNOPSIS! SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT ANY MORE DETAIL!
Innocent bysitter is at last seat in his favorite tavern when he is approached by nervous man who hands him envelope of cash and says "Here's half. You get the rest when she's gone." Bysitter looks in envelope and sees picture of the target, $10,000, and has no clue why she's wanted dead. Second man (Killer) comes in later, has never met the "petitioner" before, so bysitter just hands him the packet, minus the picture. Then bysitter makes crucial choice and attempts to go warn intended killee. Of course, it's not as simple as all that! The bysitter (a stone mason) now is required to morph into some kind of fast-thinking Superman to protect his Lois Lane (actually just "Linda") and lucky for him, he has a lot of Superman skills/knowledge from SOMEWHERE in his background, which we have to wonder where they came from, especially given the title of the book. So bysitter-turned-Superman and who-would-want-to-kill Linda go off on their rabbit run, with Killer right on their little cotton tails, right up to the climactic few pages of the book. There are surprises and other neat characters along the way, naturally.

Okay, back to the revuew. We DO care about these characters - ALL of them. While we may not exactly LIKE the Killer, we certainly become curious about him, and get absorbed in his mental illness(es) that make him such an expert at what he does. There are TIMES that we almost like him. As for the "innocent bysitter", we are certainly cheering for him all along, and not JUST for him to save the damsel. Said damsel is not exactly a damsel in distress, because she's something of a tough cookie herself, although we still cannot figure out who wants her dead and why - until very near the end.

In addition to these characters, if you know Koontz well, you know that he has a million conspiracy - um - theories? shall we call them? - up his word processor. So of course, there are layers and layers of bad guys, not just this one Killer, in this book. More suspense.

I have to also mention the very catchy cover - black with white letters for author's name and title, then in middle a bright orange "sticky note" looking piece of paper with "KILL ME INSTEAD" written on it. At my house, two of my three guys asked why I'd put that on there as they reached for the sticky note and tried to detach it. LOL.

I would recommend starting this book when you have time to finish it. I read much more slowly than most people, but with the largish (regular) clean print of this hardback, I believe I spent between 4 and 6 hours (in pieces) on it, which probably means most of you would get 'er done in about 2 or 3 solid hours of reading. Prepare for one or two wild nights. I won't tell you if you'll be happy with the ending or not (I consider that a TOTAL spoiler), but I will say that I felt most all of the story lines were tied up with no real loose ends.

Oh, and P.S. - I did NOT look up one single word this time!

Definitely among my favorite 100 books!
1-5 scale:
Suspense: 5+
Characters: 5
Plot: 5
Writer's language & style: 5