The sinking horror I experienced by page 2 of this book can fairly be attributed to Mr. Koontz, but perhaps not for the reasons he intended when he fabricated this clunker. "...the rataplan of raindrops on the roof had sometimes served as a reliable remedy for insomnia. This night, however, the liquid rhythms failed to lull her into slumber..." Are you cringing yet? Oh, it gets much worse. If you can force yourself to continue, you will be grinding your teeth to nerve endings by page 100.The sentence structure is stilted, the vocabulary pretentious. The characters are lifeless. And the dialogue--"I was plesantly soused, full of the giddy curiousity that makes dipsomania such an adventure." Mr Koontz needs to study the art of how people speak. Read Robert B. Parker. Read Hemingway.Terrible, terrible stuff.