After a spell of reading some great books with messages reminding us to appreciate what we have, I opened the new Dean Koontz novel, Velocity, in the hope that I could just sit back and enjoy some reading for the sake of reading. Boy, did I pick the right book! As I said in my last Koontz review, his books can be a little uneven, but I’d have to put this one right up there with the best of them.
A former writer, Billy Wiles, who has given up writing since his fiancée has been in a coma for the past four years, lives a quite unassuming life. He works as a bartender, visits his fiancée daily, and carves intricate designs out of wood. All of this is changed the night he goes to his car after work to find a note under his windshield wiper: If you don’t take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher somewhere in
Feeling uneasy, but thinking it has to be a joke, he unofficially tells his friend Lanny, who is a deputy with the local sheriff’s department. Lanny agrees that it has to be a sick prank, and advises him to go home and forget about it. But the next day, the body of a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered. And there is another note left on Billy’s windshield; another unspeakable choice to be made. And so the roller coaster ride begins.
This is one of those \"sitting on the edge of your seat, can’t put it down\" kind of books. Billy goes from being a nice guy in a boring, sad life, to a victim in a speeding vehicle of horror. Each note gives him less time, each corner he turns has a new challenge to try to find out who this monster is that is singling him out. I found myself holding my breath waiting to find out what happened next.
In the worst of Dean Koontz\'s books, the characters are still very likeable. In Velocity, probably one of his best books yet, Billy is so likeable that you almost feel as if he is an old friend. I’d have to say that time spent reading Velocity is time well spent. Just make sure you fasten your seat belt first.