The Face [Paperback]

The house security boss, former LAPD cop Ethan Truman, isn't that worried. The Face is away as usual and the Palazzo's defences are spectacular. What does worry him is that after tracking down the middleman who delivered one of those sinister parcels, Ethan is killed--twice. But yet he lives, as though time has been rewound; and he keeps glimpsing an old friend who is very definitely dead.

Koontz's villain is a memorably unpleasant creation; thanks to wealth, contacts and horrible ingenuity, this bad guy is well-equipped to crack the Palazzo defences, kill Ethan and grab Fric. Gradually his inhuman scheme is revealed.

Meanwhile the supernatural element is working on the other side, though shackled by rules that forbid direct action. Fric gets disquieting phone calls warning that someone or something called Moloch, devourer of children, is coming and that the boy had better find a safe hiding place. Chillingly, the caller always knows exactly where Fric is and what he's doing. And these messages somehow don't register on the Palazzo's elaborate logging system.

Appalling rain drenches Los Angeles as Moloch's day approaches; Fric's terror grows, Ethan and a friend who's still in the LAPD follow hopeless leads and even the dead begin to despair of thwarting a psychopath who holds all the high cards. No plan, however, quite survives contact with reality. The finale offers extreme violence and electrifying twists, and delivers satisfaction. --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Uplifting enough to make Cain repent … There is scarcely an author alive who loves the English language more .. whose sentences offer more musicality … the tale's grandeur and strong lines … characters are memorable and his unique mix of suspense and humour absorbing… great kudos to Koontz for creating, within the strictures of popular fiction, another notable novel of ideas and of moral imperatives … Look for this to hit #1' Publishers Weekly

‘Koontz flexes his muscles and sets forth like a demigod to create his most strongly anchored novel since 1995’s Intensity, a work sheathed with darkness and wreathed with wiry metaphor … hundreds of pages of top-drawer suspense’ Kirkus Reviews

'Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler' The Times

‘Psychologically complex, masterly and satisfying.’ The New York Times

‘Koontz has near-Dickensian powers of description, and an ability to yank us from one page to the next that few novelists can match.’ Los Angeles Times

‘Koontz has once again proven why he is one of the premier novelists of his generation.’ Amazon.co.uk

'A modern Swift … a master satirist.' Entertainment Weekly

'If Stephen King is the Rolling Stones of novels, Koontz is the Beatles.' Playboy

'Dean Koontz writes page-turners, middle-of-the-night sneak-up-behind-you suspense thrillers. He touches our hearts and tingles our spines.' Washington Post Book World

'Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose. Serious writers might do well to study his technique.' New York Times Book Review

'Fast-paced and dark … Koontz knows we live in a world where evil delights in justifying itself … Classic literature that deserves a place on the bookshelf beside Orwell's 1984 and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.' California Literary Review

'Koontz is writing right where popular culture swells into something larger, just as it did for Homer, Shakespeare, and Dickens. He's got the gift.' Australian

'Koontz is a superb plotter and wordsmith. He chronicles the hopes and fears of our time in broad strokes and fine detail, using popular fiction to explore the human condition.' USA Today

'Inspires both chills and serious thought … has the power to scare the daylights out of us.' People

'The poet laureate of paranoid pop fiction.' Denver Post

'Koontz achieves a literary miracle … stunning physical description, unique turns of phrase.' Boston Globe

'Near Dickensian powers of description.' Los Angeles Times