Dean Koontz has been one of my favorite authors since I first discovered him at around 13 years of age.  I’ve read and owned everything he’s written to date.  Lightning is, to this day, one of my 3 favorite novels (along with The Stand and Ender’s Game).  Watchers is another phenomenal read.  He’s one of the few artists (musicians, writers, actors or directors) whose work I’ll purchase on the day it’s released. 

That said, his books have gotten progressively worse in the last few years (with the exception of the Frankenstein series he’s currently in the middle of, each volume of which is written with a different co-author).  They’ve become rather formulaic and predictable.  His command of the English language is still excellent, but his plotting and prose have both taken sharp downturns recently.  I’ve heard several people say things along the lines of, “I’ve read dozens of Koontz books, but only about 4 Koontz stories.”  Which I would have to agree with.  I would add to it that in the last 8 years or so I’ve noticed a definite change in the tone, antagonists, and resolutions in his books.  I attribute it to him being old and happy, maybe having overcome whatever inner turmoil made his early works so effing scary.  Which isn’t to imply that I don’t still enjoy his books; I do.  They’re imminently readable, and the clarity of his prose (wordy descriptions aside) make them ideal beach or airplane books.

So I decided when I saw this one on the shelves at Barnes & Noble (a store whose graphic novel offerings are downright embarassing, by the way) that I’d buy this one in hardback, but if it was as disappointing as the last few I would go back to waiting on the mass-market paperback release.

The Husband, is, in my opinion, the first step in a positive direction Koontz’s writing has taken in about 5 books.  It started out according to the Koontz formula: affable down-to-earth protagonist’s life is interrupted by sinister forces, who take the thing he most loves and make him jump through impossible hoops to return her to him.  If he fails, they both die.  But right as I was starting to get frustrated, something happened.  It got interesting.

There was an unexpected twist, based on an unusual concept, which in turn led to several more twists.  All my concerns about the plot direction where allayed, and suddenly I had no idea where this thing was headed.  I mowed through the last two hundred pages in just a few hours, which is all the more impressive when I tell you I was in a car driving across Texas at the time (see previous blog).

Now, it wasn’t perfect.  The main villain collapsed like a cheap card table, and the ending was anti-climactic to say the least.  But I enjoyed the reminder of why I once considered Koontz the finest living fiction writer.