Midnight

Midnight – by Dean Koontz

It took me a long time to jump on the Dean Koontz bandwagon.  This book is only the third one that I’ve read.  The first two were among his earliest works and my impression was that he hadn’t found his groove yet. Either that or the stories simply didn’t age well.  I simply wasn’t that enthralled.  This one changed all that for me and made me hungry for more.

By the time I read this one, it wasn’t exactly ‘new’ either (30 years in between the time the book was written and the time I read it), but it was still incredibly impactful.  This was one of those books that didn’t seem to have as much action as you might expect for a 470-page (paperback) book, yet the story was so engrossing that I didn’t mind the length or lack of action.

This is one of those “strange things are happening in a small town” books. In this story, people there are starting to behave oddly, and a young woman is killed while jogging. Her cause of death also seems quite suspect.  It’s not an isolated incident either, so a federal agent arrives to investigate. In addition to the agent, the deceased jogger’s sister arrives in this somewhat remote town as well to try to find out exactly what is going on.  Soon, both of these individuals probably wish they would have stayed away.

Without giving away too much story, it seems as though there’s a bit of “mad scientist” in this town who’s trying to play God.  He’s convinced he has the formula and the means to create a perfect race of people.  Well, we all know what happens in horror stories when someone plays, or thinks he’s, God.  A couple of other characters are brought into the foreground as the story unfolds, which is one of the book’s strongest assets; the fact that the main cast remains quite small.  Unlike many Stephen King books I’ve read, this book isn’t filled with innumerable idiots stumbling around making bad things worse.

In fact, from someone such as myself who’s read just about every Stephen King book, one can’t help but make comparisons between the two masters of latter-day horror. Don’t get me wrong, I really like King, but his writing style has far too many Achilles Heels, and I found this book such a refreshing change of pace that what I’ve been used to when reading King.  This book was not only scary, but also eerie.  There were so many times when Koontz would make a random observation when he told this tale, that I couldn’t help but cackle with reactionary laughter.

It’s always a pleasure to discover a ‘new’ author, and I was relieved when I now figured out just what all the fuss was about.  I look forward to many more by this author.