Book Review: Hideaway by Dean Koontz

So my former roommate used to rave about Dean Koontz. She loved False Memory and Intensity but I hadn’t ever tried a Koontz novel.

I was… well, bitterly disappointed is a phrase that comes to mind. The writing was hackneyed, the characters were caricatures, and Koontz slaps the reader upside the head with the theme of his books, which generally bothers me.

The premise is interesting. After a car accident, Hatch Harrison is successfully brought back to life after being dead for 80 minutes. But then, inexplicably, people who’ve pissed off the Harrisons start dying and Hatch starts getting random visions.

This book might have worked a lot better had it been told by someone else, someone who wasn’t so deeply in love with his characters that he is constantly extoling their virtues without actually, you know, showing us the characters being virtuous.

Would I read another Koontz novel? Maybe. But not for a seriously long time.