JC

My favorite Dean Koontz books have long been his action-packed thrillers, whether they have an element of sci-fi and/or the supernatural or not. It seemed many of his more recent books over the past dozen years or so had lost that edge, that excitement, so I've not been very interested lately. Having said that, I still have hope and that hope has finally been rewarded with a thrill-a-page book that burns rubber off the first page and never lets up. If I had one criticism, it would be that, while Jane Hawk is a fascinating character that is pretty well-developed, many of the other characters seem a bit one dimensional, more stereotype than archetype. But, considering how much I enjoyed the story, and how much I want to read the next title in the series, I'll let that slide for the moment.

If you've watched the Amazon original series based on this book, and read it thinking you'll be seeing something just like the TV show, you might be disappointed. The premise is the same, and some of the characters are the same, or at least have the same names, but the story is less widely dispersed. The action in the book takes place only in the Pacific States and, to a lesser extent, the Rocky Mountain States, and there are no films...instead there is a book written by the Man in the High Castle. Despite this, if you can read the book and judge it on its own merits, it's a great read and an intriguing story. I found that it being different from the story depicted in the TV show made it more enjoyable...I didn't know what to expect, or what to think about some aspects of the book as I read it.

Far from a typical true-crime recitation of facts and interviews with investigators, this is the very human story of an admirably obsessed woman's quest for the truth and justice. The facts and figures are still there, but McNamara's determination to identify the killer with no name, save for the nickname she tagged to him, is the real and highly intriguing story here.

A sensational story told in a slightly less sensational book. Having watched a documentary about these characters...and that's really what they were...self-manufactured identities...I was fascinated and read several articles, which led me to seek out this book. The authors do a good job explaining who these kids were, where they came from, how they met up and then unfolding the story of the many disastrous consequences resulting from their friendship and the shared worldview they created. I found it difficult to get a handle on these kids. On the one hand, most of them seem articulate and of at least normal intelligence. But their failure to understand that the almost cartoonish “Satanic” imagery their musical heroes projected was just an act paints them as highly immature, or excessively naive. The fact that they then attempted to live up to such nonsense, to the point of committing murder and arson more than hints at some degree of mental instability. What really disturbed me the most was the absolute lack of remorse these guys expressed, even years later. Those who committed murder were even indifferent to what they'd done or the effect it had on the victims' families and friends. That may be due to the fact their own cohorts seemed just as unmoved. Even those who had been close friends with the killer or the victim offered not much more than a shrug when asked how they felt about it. Beyond that, the authors provide plenty of background information about the environment in which these events took place. My only criticism is that the second half of the book seemed a bit tedious as the authors reached beyond the original story/events and interviewed many who we're not directly involved and provided only tangential interest.