#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn the late summer of a long-ago year, Alton Turner Blackwood brutally murdered four families. His savage spree ended only when he himself was killed by the last survivor of the last family, a fourteen-year-old boy.Half a continent away and two decades later, someone is murdering families again, re-creating in detail Blackwood’s crimes. Homicide detective John Calvino … Blackwood’s crimes. Homicide detective John Calvino is certain that his own family—his wife and three children—will be targets, just as his parents and sisters were victims on that distant night when he was fourteen and killed their slayer.
As a detective, John is a man of reason who deals in cold facts. But an extraordinary experience convinces him that sometimes death is not a one-way journey, that sometimes the dead return.
Includes the bonus novella Darkness Under the Sun and an excerpt from Dean Koontz’s The City!
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It takes a lot for a book to spook me and this story had the right amount. Shadows, movement in the dark, mirrors… yep, glad I didn’t read it at night.
Alton Turner Blackwood is a sociopath and a truly scary man. The story alternates between John Calvino’s life now and Blackwood’s journal. The journal is a nice addition that gives the reader a look into Blackwood’s life and development. It’s a shocking and disturbing story.
John Calvino is a detective and the concept of the story goes completely against the mindset of a detective. There are no tangible clues, no absolute evidence, but John knows in his heart that Blackwood is back. The way the presence appears in the house and the way it moves around, place to place and person to person, is chilling. It will make you think twice the next time you shake hands with someone or feel something “just not right”.
Some of the descriptions of the murders are graphic and may not sit well with some. Blackwood is extremely sadistic and does not make death quick for the women. The ending of the story is exciting and very intense. Although Blackwood‘s story is over, Dean Koontz has created a character that will stay with the reader.
Not The Watchers, but not a bad story. A little more brutal and graphic than the norm for Koontz, who doesn’t shy from either. Didn’t really like any of the characters, so that has a lot to do with my opinion.
This was not one of my favorites of Mr. Koontz’s books. The characters were as rich as they usually are and the premise was solid but I had a difficult time getting started and keeping with the book. That may be my fault and have nothing to do with the story itself. This was a decent ghost story with a good ending.