Premise: A bartender seemly content with his life of waiting- waiting for his love to wake out of a coma, waiting to move on with his mediocre life – is challenged by a note found on his car: An ultimatum that forces him to choose between the lives of two people he doesn’t know. The stakes are upped more and more as the dangers hit closer and closer to home.
What I Liked: Dean Koontz is probably one of my second favorite horror/thriller writers. His journey into the household name reminds me that with commitment, hard work, and timing/patience, even I can be as prolific as he.
I’ve read a review of Koontz past works and someone wrote that Koontz was lucky that Stephen King existed. If it weren’t for gluttonous need for speculative fiction created by the re-surging paper-book horror genre, Koontz would likely never have been picked up. Thank God he was. He can write poetically, a true word smith. You can tell he’s well-read and knowledgeable. And he can be write really witty and humorous dialogue that gets me chuckling. He’s masterful.
What I Didn’t Like: The reviewer I mentioned above wasn’t complimenting Koontz. If it weren’t for King, Koontz really wouldn’t have gotten picked up. While he can write beautifully and can craft thrilling supernatural stories, he can also be boring. Koontz has tropes he writes over and over and over again. I’ve read enough of his works to know: there will be an orphan; this orphan fears guns or has used guns no matter their age; their parents are a hot mess; the protagonists worlds are really small in character (few friends); there will be a dog – ominously God-like and human dog; our villain will be one note – they are just evil for evil’s sake; our protagonist fawns after one love interest NO MATTER WHAT; there will be the use of the word disquiet (as if Koontz so loves the word he must use it in every manuscript), and Koontz will wax on and on after all manner of fauna and flora.
For a thriller, Velocity lacked so much speed. It starts strong, slows down, hits speed bumps, before ramping up again. What’s supposed to feel like a race against time thriller, feels like a walk. And the ramp up at the third act feels so crammed, I’m surprised at the ending. The reader is provided with so many red herrings that the true antagonist doesn’t even feel wonderous or even creative when revealed. It comes out of no where.
Verdict: So I finished the novel, because like I said Dean Koontz is one of my favorite writers. You must read Velocity if you like thrillers. I honestly had to force myself not to skip paragraphs, but don’t just take my word for it.