If there's nothing better... (The Eyes of Darkness - Dean Koontz)

Member Name: Belfastgirl

Product:	The Eyes of Darkness - Dean Koontz
Date:	14/06/01 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ok if you have nothing left to read

Disadvantages: Predictable - to the extreme

Chillingly Strange

I don't really like scary stuff. I REALLY don't like scary stuff, so I normally would not chose a book of this nature, but, I do like reading, and due to a cash flow problem (what's new!) and me having read every book in the vicinity of our house (including the instruction manual for the video machine - I now know how to set the clock on the silly thing) I decided to do the unthinkable - read a book that my boyfriend liked.

He recommended this book by Dean Koontz, one of his favorite authors and I settled down to read.

The book I read was a standard paperback edition, costing £5.99.

The story follows a lady, Christina Evans, recently separated from her husband, and even more recently lost her son, Danny, in what appears to have been a freak accident while on a trip. Tina is getting used to being alone in her house, beginning a wonderful new career - organizing a new show in Las Vegas. The show is a huge success and on the opening night Tina meets Elliot Stryker, a lawyer, and soon (surprise surprise) finds that she cares deeply for him.

But while this has all been going on, strange things have been happening in another part of Tina's life. She has been hearing strange noises at night, mostly coming from Danny's room - and stranger still, Tina finds a message on Danny's chalkboard :

NOT DEAD

Is this someone's idea of a sick joke? Who could it be?

As Tina investigates further she finds herself and Elliot getting pulled deeper and deeper into something very dangerous and leads to run ins with "The network", something similar to the CIA - but is so unofficial that it doesn't even have a proper name.

I don't want to tell the ending, as I wouldn't like to spoil it for anyone, except to say that the predictability of this book is high, and it takes an age for the author to get to the point.

I thought that this bo
ok had great potential, so many areas could have been explored, but I found it to be terribly predictable (unlike the VCR manual). While there were some very chilling parts, it wasn't overly scary - nothing worse than your average episode of the X-Files. In fact, that's what this book is like, an episode of the X-Files.

Having never read a Dean Koontz book before, I am unable to say if this is typical to his style, but if it is, I doubt whether I shall read too many more of his books. I had myself prepared to be scared, but it never happened.

It's good, but not that good.

Summary: