Would YOU kill/die for love?? (The Husband - Dean Koontz)

Member Name: QueenElf

Product:	The Husband - Dean Koontz
Date:	24/03/08 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast-paced. Can be read quickly.

Disadvantages: See Review

Would YOU kill for love?

I'm finally beginning to catch up with the latest books by Dean Koontz, after a gap of about five years. It wasn't intentional, I just got caught up with new authors and thought I would save money by buying the paperbacks later on. Prior to reading The Husband, I had just read Velocity and found it very different to his earlier books. Actually I think his writing has taken a turn for the worse in some ways, though I don't expect others to agree with me. Reading this new one led me to think that Koontz is maybe taking some of his readers comments too far, or maybe he thinks that less is better.

~~ Welcome to the world of Craziness~~

Our hero, Mitchell Rafferty, better known as just Mitch, is quietly going about his business, planting flowers, when his life is turned upside down by a shattering phone call. Someone has kidnapped his wife and is demanding a ransom of £2million dollars. It's not enough to tell his tormentors that he's just a self-employed gardener without access to that kind of money. They seem to know that already and are not prepared to negotiate. Mitch has just sixty hours to come up with the money or his wife dies.

Like many of Koontz's plotlines this is not as simple as it would first appear. The action starts like a stop-watch and continues to pour on the pressure as Mitch is pulled in all kinds of directions. One of these is towards his brother, and his very dysfunctional family. That extra snippet of the plot is essential to show how Koontz has changed his writing with his last few books.

~~ Characters~~

My initial thoughts were, this is very much like Velocity, the last book I'd recently read. Mitch seems a nice enough guy, very much in love with his wife, Holly and not the type of person that you'd expect to be mixed up in anything as serious as kidnapping and certainly not able to raise the ransom money. There's always something deeper about Koontz's characters though. Adversity brings out the best in them, even when they are forced to act against everything in their nature. From the very start the kidnappers are "handling" him, something he soon realises. But he's been "handled" before by people who are experts in this field, his own mother and father.
It might be more obvious in this book, but looking back on many of Koontz's earlier work, there is always a theme of manipulation even with his strongest characters. Mitch has to face some truths about himself if he is to get his wife back.
The other characters are interesting, but more on the fringes of the action, although there is some promising dialogue between Holly and one of the kidnappers that I would have liked to become more developed. The old Koontz would have done just that. He is much fairer than many male writers towards the role of women in his stories.
There are other hints towards his family, but less is, in this case, more.

~~ Plot Development.~~

This starts strong and the action continues to speed up, so the reader finds it hard to put down. There are plenty of twists to keep Mitch on his toes and the reader becomes very involved with the action. There are car chases, deadlines to meet, seemingly impossible situations and plenty of baddies to take some tumbles. Koontz weaves this in almost seamlessly...he just leaves one thing out. Humour. His stock in trade. However dark his books are, there is always room for humour, even if it's the dark kind.
He does start it with Mitch's gardening buddy, Iggy, another surfer type. This could have introduced some light relief as it did in a few of his Moonlight Bay novels, but it was almost as if Koontz had other things on his mind.
I mentioned some criticism of his books and the way they don't get directly to the point. I think some readers prefer a straight storyline rather than a build-up to the horror to come. Personally I prefer the latter, though his new style of writing does make for quick and easy reading.

~~ My Thoughts ~~

There is something very dark in the background of this book. I have been thinking for a while that many of his main male characters share some of his own life experiences, but he has never come as close to revealing his own personal feelings as with this book.
Anyone who has read quite a few of his books will see the shape of his own personality in his books, especially these later ones. They will also know about his rise from a background of poverty and bad parenting to become a self-made man. His parents were drunks who gave him no support, either financially or with any love and care. He put himself through school with odd jobs supporting him and in his early years by getting himself to school. This is part of his biography, though he never makes any disparaging remarks about his parents.
In "The Husband", Mitch comes from a background of very intelligent parents who have strange ideas about parenting. I can't say much more as it would spoil the readers own perceptions and I don't like doing that.
I couldn't let the comparison go by without a comment though. People who write tend to filter their writing through their own experiences. It's not a conscious thing but it happens far more than anyone would believe. I find it in my own writing, though I'm not much more than a dabbler.
If it helps Koontz get over his terrible childhood then I think he is doing the correct thing. It's a process of healing and that can't be bad. I would love to hear from anyone else who has read this book and picked up on background. Maybe I am looking too closely at it?

As to the title, well maybe Mitch is put into this position, you won't know unless you read it.

My copy is from my favourite 2nd hand charity shop. I only paid 80 pence for it. Since it all goes to a children's charity I think it's money well spent.
Otherwise it's available from Amazon and Ebay at bargain prices from 1p used (plus postage). Retail price is £6.99.

I've knocked off one star because although it may seem a long book to some of you, but at 453 pages in a small paperback, I found it lacked something I couldn't put my finger on. Perhaps I have become used to the long descriptive passages. At his best his prose can be almost poetic.

© Lisa Fuller. March 2008.

Summary: One of his new style books.