I’m a fan of Dean Koontz, so when I say that I wasn’t entirely pleased with What the Night Knows
As in so many Koontz stories, the action is sparked by a bigger-than-life villain. This one is Alton Turner Blackwood, a gigantic, deformed sexual sadist who has an extra advantage—he’s dead. He can possess inanimate objects or people, and he uses them to commit horrific sex murders against entire families. He especially craves young, innocent females.
Years ago police detective John Calvino, then a teenaged boy, walked in on Blackwood just after he had murdered Calvino’s family. Calvino shot him to death. But somehow Blackwood’s evil spirit endures, and he is determined to recreate his last string of murders, on precisely the same timetable, finishing up with Calvino and his wife and three children.
This being Koontz, you can be fairly confident there will not be too much onstage gore, and evil will not triumph. Unexpected strength will be found in innocence, and semi-supernatural dog will play a part.
An interesting aspect of What the Night Knows is that it has an appendix—a prequel novella called Darkness Under the Sun, a genuinely chilling tale (in view of what we’ve already learned about Blackwood) involving an earlier encounter between the murderer and a lonely young boy. Genuinely creepy.
Still, there are reasons I can’t entirely recommend What the Night Knows. The main reason is just the perversity factor. Although Blackwood’s horrific crimes don’t take place “on stage,” the constant focus is on a character who desires to defile, torture, and kill young girls. I have a hard time recommending a book as long as this, which involves spending so much time thinking about that subject. I’m not sure I would have chosen to read it myself, if I’d read a synopsis beforehand.
Also I thought the climax a little disappointing. Everything worked out as it ought to, but the finale seemed a little contrived.
I don’t recommend What the Night Knows for younger readers (older teens at a minimum), and my recommendation for older readers is a reserved one.
This book didn’t work for me either. I wish he would do more of his “Odd” or “Christopher Snow” series.
i love early dean koontz stuff, but his recent stuff–and i mean going back ten or so years, sort of irks me
it seems hes fallen in love with the language, and it’s the language–or his “big” idea about good verse evil, redemption etc–that often takes center stage
give me phantoms or midnight any day!!
Jeremy, my feelings are almost completely opposite to yours. I don’t much like the early Koontz. In my view he’s become a much better writer in recent years, and the C. S. Lewis-informed spiritual and moral element of the later stuff pleases me extremely. I’m not a horror fan as such. I make an exception for Koontz.