Barbara S. (barbsis) - , reviewed on 3/14/2012 + 1076 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 4

I love Dean Koontz but some of his books are fantastic while others are just ridiculous. Unfortunately this one falls closer to the ridiculous than the fantastic. John Calvino is a detective who goes off on a tangent (well he actually starts working a case that is not his and gets put on unpaid leave so he can work on it undisturbed???). His family is completely unrealistic. His beautiful perfect wife doesn't even bat an eyelash when John tells her he's lied to her for almost 2 months...it was for her own good after all. And his kids are completely perfect and never get into trouble or fight with each other and they are home-schooled. Who the hell home-schools their children in this day and age? A rich artist that's who (his wife) because Nicki has all the time in the world to devote to her children. Um what about her paintings that basically support the family? John's children are more than precocious and are extremely mature for their age. The 13 year old boy, Zach is obsessed with one day being a marine and thinks how what he does now will impact his future career. 11 year old Naomi is a know-it-all who makes fun of her scaredy-cat baby sister (only in her mind of course). And 8 year old Minnie is some kind of psychic prodigy who designs complicated lego sculptures that have no basis in gravity or reality (and of course save the day in the end at the story).

I did think that the ghost of Alten Turner Blackwood was creepy and reading journal which was apparently written well after events happened gave interesting insights into his thoughts and his personality. However the repetitiveness of how the ghost inhabited victim after victim was annoying and way overdone.

It seemed to me that Mr. Koontz had a thesaurus at hand while writing this novel as some of the vocabulary was way out there. The 11 year old kept using "perspicacious" in almost every sentence. Also used were badinage and persiflage and even after checking my dictionary I still don't know what they mean.

Oh well, all in all not a great story but not exactly terrible either.

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