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Reading Dean Koontz - R.R.

5/7/2018

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I have always had an affinity for the works of Dean Koontz and just finished listening to the audio version of his 2017 novel The Silent Corner (my rating of 10 on a 1-to-10 scale).  This work, read excellently by Elisabeth Rodgers (who did a great job on The Night Ocean by Paul LaFarge), is one of Koontz’s better tales.  The thriller sets up a sympathetic heroine in Jane Hawk who faces increasing tension and adversity as she fights to uncover and defeat an evil force embarked on mind control and culling of the herd.  The author combines great pace and nice descriptions to keep my attention.  And leaves open the door to a follow-up novel. 
In a way this is a return to an earlier (1994) Koontz novel, Dark Rivers of the Heart (rating 8), where the author displays great control of technical details to hold his reader.  That novel enmeshed me as a Koontz fan and accounts for use of Koontz’s name in The Clown Forest Murders.  In the scene where Dave leaves Princeton to drive to Norwich, a guard in the Princeton traffic gazebo is reading a novel.  Dave recognizes the book.  Author Andrew had Tom Clancy as the writer.  I changed it to Koontz.  Just because. 
I’ve kept track in a database the many Koontz novels I've read.  I pulled that list up to discover there are nineteen works with ratings from 3 to 10 on my ten-scale.  Koontz, of course, is a multi-genre writer with works in the thriller, fantasy, SciFi, horror, and mystery categories.  These classifications are my own and therefore suspect.  I was surprised to find that I put the Odd novels in several different categories, e.g., Odd Thomas (8) and Brother Odd (4) I called mysteries, but Odd Hours (6) and Odd Interlude (6) were fantasies, and Forever Odd (5) was a thriller.  Genre is in the eye of the beholder. 
My favorites in the list included two of the Frankenstein books, the Odd novels, and both Dark Rivers of the Heart and now The Silent Corner.  I also liked 77 Shadow Street (SciFi work rated 9).  I am amazed at Koontz’s ability to create such a diverse library and entertain me for decades.  My mention of this author in The Clown Forest Murders is but meager payment of my debt.

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