Velocity by Dean Koontz

I admit, I've got a little bit of a grudge against Dean Koontz. I have fond memories of reading an illustrated young adult book called Oddkins when I was 10 or 11 and really liking it. It had very dark themes, fascinating illustrations, and sophisticated writing for a children's book (though Amazon tells me it was actually marketed for adults). In fact I liked that first book so much that I looked for more in that style or with that level of creativity from his later novels. In fact, I was somewhat of an early bloomer in terms of reading comprehension, so early in junior high I skipped over the Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine-level authors and jumped straight into Koontz and King.

But somehow Koontz never quite lived up to the promise of that initial book for me. His stories all seemed vaguely familiar, his characters never quite vivid enough to be anything more than characters. I was never drawn into the worlds he created, despite giving him numerous chances. Both my wife and my good friend Shawn have been/are Dean Koontz fans, but to me he was never able to become anything more than a second rate Stephen King. I admit, part of that bias may be due to the sheer number of books the man has turned out. According to Wikipedia, Koontz has written and co-written more than 90 books (and that's not counting screenplays, poetry, etc.) in his 61 years on the earth. Perhaps it's just professional jealousy rearing its ugly head, but it's hard for me to imagine maintaining any level of quality with that number of books. Let's be honest, Shakespeare, who wrote only 38 plays, had a few stinkers in there. And Dean Koontz is no Shakespeare.

So it was with some pessimism that I picked up Velocity at the airport a couple weeks back. See, airports prompt a certain type of reading (quick, plot-driven, keep-my-mind-off-of-sitting-here-for-three-hours type of action stories), which is why you see mostly Dan Brown and Dean Koontz and James Patterson there, rather than Phillip Roth or Michael Chabon or Jonathan Safran Foer--the more literate contemporary writers. That's ok, and I, as much as anyone, want a page turner in the airport. And by the time Amelia and I arrived at the Philadelphia airport (motto: Hope You Weren't In a Hurry), having finished both Watchmen and CandyFreak (to be reviewed later) during the trip already, I was in need of something new. Velocity caught my eye (probably because of that garishly bright cover) and $8 later I had something to read.

The story is so simple it's a wonder it hasn't been done before. A bartender comes out of work one day to find a note on his dashboard: "If you don't take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher somewhere in Napa County. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have six hours to decide. The choice is yours." No, this isn't a high-concept Choose Your Own Adventure novel. Instead, the bartender is plunged into a serial killer's twisted game--where he is the pawn! Whoa, sorry, it was like I was writing the book jacket there. Billy, the bartender, gets drawn deeper and deeper into the game and his options become more and more limited--and diabolical! Whooops, happened again. I slipped into "hack writing" mode. You know hack writing mode, where plot points are convenient, if unbelievable (yes, there really is a bottomless pit for disposing of bodies in this book), and nothing really rings true.

I give Koontz a hard time, but I actually did find myself getting drawn into the story. It's fast paced and mostly clever, despite some obvious twists. But he--like many of his contemporary New York Times Best-selling authors--often mistakes character traits for depth of character. Billy has: A Wife in a Coma! A Secret from his Past! A Dark and Tortured Soul! Each of these items are talked about plenty, but they're never really explored in any convincing or complex way. So the result is that all of the people in the story (the Beautiful Girl with a Heart of Gold! the Lonely Cop with Broken Dreams!) all become caricatures rather than characters. I can enjoy the plot, but I don't really have anything invested in the people. That type of reading can be fun, but it's what ultimately makes me save this type of book for reading when you're just trying to keep from being bored rather than reading for any depth or thought.

Which is all to say, the book is fine for what it is. But I don't see myself rushing out to buy the next Dean Koontz thriller (which was probably published about two weeks after this one)--at least not until I'm stuck at the airport again.