What The Night Knows by Dean Koontz
HarperTorch (paperback) 2011
495 pages
BLURB FROM THE COVER
The stunning new thriller from the bestselling author of Velocity and Breathless.
Billy Lucas confesses to a shocking crime. He’s only fourteen years old but he’s a sadistic killer and proud of it. He’s in the secure wing of the state hospital but … he seems too wise for his age, not crazy, too knowing. About the nature of evil, and whether it lives on beyond death. Too knowing about other crimes that took place before he was born …
Other murders from twenty years ago surface in the mind of Detective John Calvino as he interviews young Billy Lucas. Calvino carries away a signed confession … and a sense of great danger. That night he feels that somehow Billy has come home with him, to his family.
Over the next weeks, this haunted feeling does not go away. It only gets worse. Then another killing spree happens, just as and when John Calvino dreaded it would. Billy is safely locked away, but not the ghost, if the ghost exists, that links these murders with past crimes, and with John Calvino.
Anything could happen, and surely will … again.
EXTRACT
WHAT YEAR THESE EVENTS TRANSPIRED IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE. Where they occurred is not important. The time is always, and the place is everywhere.
REVIEW
I’ve wanted to read What The Night Knows since I read Koontz’s spin off novella, Darkness Under The Sun a few months ago. I thought What The Night Knows was great. The novel is well written and fast paced. I really enjoyed the supernatural elements with the evil spirit of a serial killer and the demon Ruin using people with nasty streaks to commit brutal murders. I thought the supernatural aspects of the novel were interesting and original. Alton Turner Blackwood is one nasty person. I liked how Koontz doesn’t just make him a one dimensional monster. I felt almost sorry for him at times, born hideously disfigured and locked in a tower by his family. He could be a figure of pity if not for the fact he’s a sadistic murder who sacrifices victims to the demon Ruin. I thought John Calvino was a great, flawed character. I liked his linked to Blackwood. I found the first few chapters chilling when Calvino speaks to 14-year-old Billy Lucas, who slaughtered his family while being possessed by Blackwood. I found this section really chilling. Overall, I thought What The Night Knows was great. I’ve forgiven Koontz for the awful mess that the last three Frankenstein novels were and welcomed him back into the fold of my top writers.
RATING
