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A review by steven_v
The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz
3.0
I’ve been a Dean Koontz fan for a long time. I like his style of suspense novels, the way he builds tension, the way he writes his characters, and so on.
This book has some interesting and some suspenseful elements, but unfortunately it does not rise to the standards of Koontz classics like [b:Lightning|32424|Lightning|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312500123s/32424.jpg|1396631], [b:Watchers|32423|Watchers|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1308458930s/32423.jpg|2200683], [b:Whispers|64948|Whispers|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309198136s/64948.jpg|442705]. The characters are very well done, as usual, but that’s the book’s only real strength.
The plot itself is very simplistic, much less complicated than usual for a Dean Koontz novel, and the story is much too slow to build up. Normally in a Koontz novel, something startling, supernatural, or surprising happens right away, and then you are on a rollercoaster ride of suspense for the rest of the book, unable to stop turning the pages until the ending. This time, however, the startling or surprising thing comes later, and is too subtle and vague to be quite as tension-building as usual. The plot took too long to develop.
If this had been a very long book, a slow-to-develop plot, although not typical of Koontz, might have been just fine. But unfortunately, just as he finishes developing to the story to the point where it’s interesting, the book comes to its ending — an ending that felt rushed and was distinctly unsatisfying.
I won’t put any specifics here, since I don’t want to spoil the surprises for people — this book does have some surprises as most Koontz books do. But from where I sit many were predictable and thus not all that shocking, and the climax happened so fast I had to actually re-read the few pages at the end just to see if I missed something or if my Nook had messed up and skipped a bunch of pages (it didn’t).
This book is fair, but not up to Koontz’s usual standards. He has many better novels I would recommend ahead of this one. If you want to read one of his really good newer ones, I’d recommend [b:The Good Guy|32441|The Good Guy|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320497886s/32441.jpg|1443220] or [b:The Taking|16434|The Taking|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166723460s/16434.jpg|944262].
This book has some interesting and some suspenseful elements, but unfortunately it does not rise to the standards of Koontz classics like [b:Lightning|32424|Lightning|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312500123s/32424.jpg|1396631], [b:Watchers|32423|Watchers|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1308458930s/32423.jpg|2200683], [b:Whispers|64948|Whispers|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309198136s/64948.jpg|442705]. The characters are very well done, as usual, but that’s the book’s only real strength.
The plot itself is very simplistic, much less complicated than usual for a Dean Koontz novel, and the story is much too slow to build up. Normally in a Koontz novel, something startling, supernatural, or surprising happens right away, and then you are on a rollercoaster ride of suspense for the rest of the book, unable to stop turning the pages until the ending. This time, however, the startling or surprising thing comes later, and is too subtle and vague to be quite as tension-building as usual. The plot took too long to develop.
If this had been a very long book, a slow-to-develop plot, although not typical of Koontz, might have been just fine. But unfortunately, just as he finishes developing to the story to the point where it’s interesting, the book comes to its ending — an ending that felt rushed and was distinctly unsatisfying.
I won’t put any specifics here, since I don’t want to spoil the surprises for people — this book does have some surprises as most Koontz books do. But from where I sit many were predictable and thus not all that shocking, and the climax happened so fast I had to actually re-read the few pages at the end just to see if I missed something or if my Nook had messed up and skipped a bunch of pages (it didn’t).
This book is fair, but not up to Koontz’s usual standards. He has many better novels I would recommend ahead of this one. If you want to read one of his really good newer ones, I’d recommend [b:The Good Guy|32441|The Good Guy|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320497886s/32441.jpg|1443220] or [b:The Taking|16434|The Taking|Dean Koontz|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166723460s/16434.jpg|944262].