Koko (Paperback)

The answer was to write thrillers. A whole new avenue of unexplored dwelling places of the dark.

But where as King failed in his attempts at writing thrillers, such as "Needful Things" and "Gerald's Game" where he let his stories slip into the comfort and parody of what he knows best, so in the end they were neither one nor the other, Straub was able to excel in this genre.

In "Koko" he wrote about the lives of four people, all Vietnam veterans, who are being tracked down by a serial killer that was once their comrade-in-arms. Friends that had to talk about the untellable, think the unthinkable, in order to understand what was being done to them, and who it was that was doing it.

The horror still comes, but in human form. It comes in the disguise of the weakness and cruelty of Man, of the past heavy with guilt and the atrocities that are lying there waiting to be rediscovered.

And yet it manages to be romantic and nostalgic. You feel loss for those that have gone, whether they deserve it or not. And you feel you have learned more about those terrible times of America's worst mistake.

You feel this because the writer has directed you to feel. He points to a suspect of who the serial killer might be, and you believe it, every single time. It is the true mark of a great writer that he holds that power over the reader.

The worlds Peter Straub creates are as believable as our own realities, and while we are in his grip who are we to doubt him?

Years after the end of the Vietnam War, four members of the same platoon meet in Washington, D.C., for the unveiling of the Vietnam War Memorial. Four men from totally different backgrounds, who chose different paths in life, Dr. Michael Pool, pediatrician; Harry "Beans" Beevers, the "Lost Boss, the world's worst lieutenant" - a lawyer; Tina Pumo, Pumo the Puma, whom Underhill had called Lady Pumo - a NYC restaurateur; and wild little Conor Linklater, a skilled carpenter." These men are supposedly the only survivors of their platoon. They all bonded, once, in the brotherhood of combat. They closed rank throughout the traumatic period when members of their group were accused of committing My Lai-level atrocities in a little village called Ia Thuc. Now they will re-forge their ties to look for another platoon member - one whom they thought long dead - a probable murderer.

A series of brutal, seemingly random slayings have been committed in the Far East. The victims were all foreigners - American, British, French. A calling card was left behind at each crime scene, leading the vets to believe that the killer was one of their own - an ex-soldier known as Koko. The four travel together, once again, to Singapore and then Bangkok in search of a an elusive and wily ghost from the past. Their pursuit becomes, in a sense, a last mission, an opportunity for closure. And it is also a time-out from their daily lives - a chance to evaluate and contemplate change. For their own purposes they are determined to catch-up with Koko before the police do.

I was riveted to the page with "Koko." Peter Straub has created some of the most phenomenal, realistic, and fully realized characters I have met on the written page. They are indeed a complex bunch of folk, especially the killer. The narrative is richly textured - beautifully written. At time I would pause and read descriptions over again, just for the pleasure of doing so and visualizing the scene in my mind's eye. And the story resonates long after the novel is completed. It is a tale of Vietnam and of lost innocence - themes which are not at all contradictory. Highly recommended!
JANA