"Riveting..." 203 Pageviews

Velocity, $17.82 Amazon.com, is the 47th thriller from Dean Koontz that a publishing house has agreed to market. There must be some method to his madness, don't you think? I own eight of Dean's books, and I've read nine, but I've barely put a dent in his back list. Having recently completed Velocity, $17.82 Amazon.com, -- which is a novel with both a good hook and a strong ending -- let me announce that I plan to keep on going back for more.

Each Koontz book starts with a seemingly ordinary circumstance; a man arrives in Kansas City, a widower driving to Santa Monica suffers an anxiety attack, a man in an Armani suit gets out of a Lexus, an expatriate in Kyoto awakens from a nightmare, or, an author living at Big Bear Lake steps out onto her porch. Then Koontz characteristically applies an unusual twist to each premise. Velocity, starts out rather simply at a family tavern in Vineyard Hills with a boozy conversation between a barfly, a bartender and a tourist. And then it swiftly turns to menace.

Literally minutes after finishing his shift, bartender and failed writer Billy Wiles exits Jackie O'Hara's tavern and walks to his Ford Explorer only to be stopped dead in his tracks. Someone has mysteriously pinned a note to his SUV, and he apprehensively approaches to read it. The message he finds under his windshield wiper is neatly typed, and states: If you don't take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blonde schoolteacher somewhere in Napa County. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have six hours to decide. The choice is yours.

Of course, Billy thinks this is just a crackpot joke, but he isn't sure. He takes the note to a friend, Lanny Olsen, a cop on the Vineyard Hills police force, and his friend basically dismisses it as a prank. Surely it's a prank by another bartender, a bar patron, or the wait staff? Billy tries to put it out of his mind because he has other things on his plate anyways. After he leaves Lanny's house, Billy Drives to Whispering Pines Convalescent Home. Billy's girlfriend Barbara Mandel is staying there. Billy's girlfriend is in a coma. She's been in a coma for almost four years, in fact. Occasionally her eyelids flutter -- she might sigh or yawn -- and she whispers random sentence fragments (which Billy documents in a small notebook) on occasion, but they make no sense.

Close by the tavern where Billy works, an artist of international renown (Valis) is constructing a mural under commission that is 70 feet high by 150 feet long. The mural is a point of discussion for the bar patrons, and the artisans that come into Jackie O'Hara's place. The bar being a bar, rumors also circulate there. Billy hears directly from Jackie that he thinks one of the part-time bartenders at the tavern is 'a little off.' To be certain, the people that work at the bar (alongside Billy Wiles) can best be described as characters. A lovely and wholesome waitress named Ivy Elgin is one of the more interesting bystanders on the tavern staff. Although she's considered squeamish by most who know her, she has a strange interest in dead things. Billy and Ivy also share a fascinating interlude at her house, much later in the book.

In any case, when Billy departs the tavern the next night, he finds a second threatening note. Lanny just happens to be pulling into the tavern parking lot when Billy plucks another missive from the windshield of his SUV. To Billy's astonishment, Lanny tells him there is a victim from the first note, and Billy gets nauseous. Because Lanny was reluctant to get involved at first, and dismissed the original note, he's really more concerned about protecting his job and his pension. Now Billy has to inform him of the second taunting note: If you don't go to the police and get them involved, I will kill an unmarried man who won't much be missed by the world. If you do go to the police, I will kill a young mother of two. You have five hours to decide. The choice is yours. Soon after the contents of this second note are divulged, Billy and Lanny grow a little angry with the other, then they part company and head separate ways.

True enough, Billy Wiles is then drawn further into the web of an unseen killer, while possessing little understanding of why he is the reluctant target in this cryptic game. And Billy starts to lose it a little when he goes to Lanny's residence to compare notes, fishes a spare key from its hiding place, and finds his friend dead in an upstairs bedroom -- shot in the head. The officer's untimely death then reveals the true nature of the relationship between Billy and Lanny, which is one of the more unexpected and welcome turns in the plot. Billy's secret past is almost even more interesting than the eventual three staged altercations with the gruesome murderer. One of my favorite characters in Velocity actually turns out to be Sheriff John Palmer, a gentleman that knows all about Billy and his tortured past. Billy and John have an awkward encounter, and choice dialogue later ensues at the Vineyard Hills Public Library.

You'll be pleased that I'm ending the review here, because I don't want to divulge too much, but I will tell you that Billy gets two more insidious notes from the mystery killer, and a few more people die before the game is drawn to a fitting end. Velocity is a great entertainment from one of the masters of suspense, and an improvement over recent Koontz books -- in all probability you'll enjoy it. "Here's to Ned Pearsall! He started it all..."


(86/203)
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The Book:
Velocity,
Bantam
June 2005

ISBN:
553804154

Pages:
397 Pages

Rating:
4.0 Stars

Chapters:
77 Numbered Chapters

If You Like Velocity, You Might Enjoy:
Life Expectancy
The Taking
Odd Thomas
The Face
By the Light of the Moon

Visit the Official Websites:
www.bantamdell.com
www.deankoontz.com

Some of My Other Thriller Reviews:
Controlled Burn
Hidden Prey
Just One Look
Paranoia
Tampa Burn

First Sentence:
With draft beer and a smile, Ned Pearsall raised a toast to his deceased neighbor, Henry Friddle, whose death greatly pleased him.

Special Note:
I hate to say it, but Epinions.com is all fubar in this case. The author is clearly Dean Koontz and not Robin Tamblyn. Additionally, if you look in the View Details link for this product, this is definitely not a Romance.