Breathless

November 2, 2009
Bestseller Koontz (Relentless
) delivers a hard-to-classify stand-alone set near the Rocky Mountains that will appeal more to fans of his Odd Thomas books than those partial to his Hitchcockian thrillers. While out for a walk, reclusive Grady Adams and his wolfhound, Merlin, spot two white furry animals “as large as midsize dogs” and “as quick and limber as cats” that aren't like anything previously known to science. The sudden arrival of these mysterious creatures out of the blue appears to be linked to several other baffling phenomena. Meanwhile, a sadist, Henry Rouvroy, tracks down his identical twin, James, and kills him and James's wife in order to assume his brother's identity. After the murders, Rouvroy is unsettled by evidence that the dead have not stayed dead. Koontz's cryptic dedication to Aesop (“twenty-six centuries late and with apologies for the length”) may hold the key to what's going on, but readers are likely to find the moral of this peculiar tale, if there is one, obscure.

November 15, 2009
The endearing golden retriever heroine of The Darkest Evening of the Year (2007) and the real-life golden retriever star of A Big Little Life (2009) acquire a male peer in Koontzs new novel, an Irish wolfhound named Merlin despite the fact that, unlike his female colleagues, he does nothing magical. Hes also not one of the protagonists, though hes the faithful friend of four of them: his master, his vet, and two creatures entirely new under the sun, who, adorably child-sized, big-eyed, and furry, seem at first closer akin to him than to humans but turn out to be genetically indistinguishable from Homo sapiens. The pair, dubbed Puzzle and Riddle by Merlins people, arrive simultaneously with thousands more pairs of their kind all over the globeand just in time. For, in Breathless, as in many previous Koontz novels, this old worlds in a helluva fix. But this time, Puzzle, Riddle, and their kin may set things right. At any rate, the creatures arrival immediately triggers one outstandingly good development: an angry drunk sobers up and lightens up enough to seek out the parents hes long been estranged from; en route, he thwarts a heinous criminal. Furthermore, because the newcomers are considerably more than they initially seem, they effect more good, including their own escape from Department of Homeland Security detention. A first-rate first-alien-encounter yarn.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)