The Husband - Dean Koontz

2006; 415 pages. Awards : NY Times #1 Best Seller. Genre : Crime Thriller, but you'll find Dean Koontz and this book in the "Horror" section of your bookstore. Overall Rating : "B+".

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Mitch Rafferty leads a comfortable but modest life. He owns and operates a small, two-man gardening company, has a couple thousand dollars in savings in the bank, lives in an average house in an average suburb, and is hopelessly in love with his beautiful wife, Holly.

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Then one day, someone kidnaps Holly and gives Mitch 60 hours to come up with two million dollars in ransom money. And to make sure he knows they're serious, they gun down a man walking his dog across the street from where Mitch is working.

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What's To Like...

The story flows nicely, with no slow spots. Koontz creates a number of interesting characters, and they all seem like suspects when you're introduced to them. Both Mitch and I got quite paranoid along the way. Mitch himself comes from a "put the fun back in dysfunctional" family. See the Excerpts section, below.

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Koontz again manages to work a golden retriever into the story. The last time, it was a scrabble-playing dog; here it has no special powers. FYI, Koontz is an avid proponent of dogs in general, and golden retrievers in particular. Oh yeah, and there's a brief mention of Pennsylvania Dutch shoo-fly pie, something I sorely miss from my childhood.

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The story spins to an exciting, if predictable, conclusion. The only negative I can say is that there are some gaping loose ends that remain unresolved. Along the way, Mitch gets framed for a couple crimes to prevent him going to the cops. And on his own, he steals two cars (one's a carjacking), assaults a police officer, and hides three bodies. None of this is ever cleared up. In real life, I don't think the authorities would overlook all of this just so everyone could live happily ever after.

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New/Kewl Words...

Mordant : grim or sinister. Numinous : mysterious, holy, supernatural. Chambranle : the border or frame, usually made of stone or wood, around a doorway. Miscegenation : reproduction by parents of different races (literal) or of different species (figurative).

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Excerpts :

The five Rafferty children, on their thirteenth birthdays, had been expected to stop calling their parents Mom and Dad, and to begin using first names. Mitch's mother, Katherine, preferred to be called Kathy, but his father would not abide Danny instead of Daniel. (pg. 107)

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"Remember when I got caught with the copy of Charlotte's Web?"

"You were almost nine. You spent 20 days in the learning room." Anson quoted Daniel : "'Fantasy is a doorway to superstition.'"

"Talking animals, a humble pig, a clever spider-"

"'A corrupting influence,'" Anson quoted. "'The first step in a life of unreason and irrational beliefs.'"

Their father saw no mystery in nature, just a green machine. (pg. 157)

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What would you do for love? Would you die? Would you kill?

The Husband was my second Koontz book. The first is reviewed here. In both cases, Koontz proves to be a master story-teller. I can see why he's so popular. Be he also manages to squeeze in some delightful imagery. For instance :

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Only the thinnest wound of the fallen day bled along the far horizon, and otherwise the sky was dark, and the sea dark; and the moon had not yet risen to silver the deserted beaches." (pg. 149). Or :

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In the gunman's open and unblinking eyes, the mortician moon had laid coins. (pg. 197).

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It's nice to see that good writing and a good story are not mutually exclusive. I give The Husband a "B+", noting that the only thing keeping it from an "A" are those pesky loose ends.