If I were actually the kind of industry insider I pretend to be as an author/blogger, I would have been aware that Dean Koontz’ long-awaited final volume in his Frankenstein trilogy was coming out at last. (He delayed it, he has reported, because New Orleans, the setting of the books, had suffered enough after Hurricane Katrina, and deserved a break. I’d been very worried the story would go forever unfinished.)

Koontz dedicates Frankenstein: Dead and Alive to “the late Mr. Lewis, who long ago realized that science was being politicized….” It would appear that C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength was an inspiration for this book and for the whole trilogy. That gives me particular satisfaction, as I did an homage of my own in Wolf Time.

Although it’s not necessary to read the first two books before reading Dead and Alive, I would recommend it. It’s a pity there was such a long lag between books, because, in my opinion, this book works best as the capstone to the trilogy experience.

If you haven’t read the earlier books, Koontz takes the main characters from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s classic horror novel, transports them to the present, and changes their roles. No, that’s not fair. They’re the same characters, with 200 years’ experience behind them now. Victor Frankenstein (who now calls himself Victor Helios) has maintained the scientific arrogance that drove him to create a monster in the first place. Extending his own life through his scientific skills, he has developed into a megalomaniac intent on destroying all mankind and replacing it with a cloned race of his own creation, obedient to his commands. The monster, who calls himself Deucalion, has paradoxically gained wisdom and compassion with his years. His only goal now is to stop Frankenstein.

He’s assisted in his crusade by Carson O’Conner and Michael Maddison, a female-male New Orleans cop team now off the force, which has largely been taken over by members of Frankenstein’s New Race. They are a delightful pair of characters, cautiously feeling their way into romance, and they do a lot to keep such a dark story positive. Another bright spot is a very strange, but touching, developing relationship between Erica IV, Frankenstein’s cloned wife, and an ugly, hairless dwarf of peculiar origin.

Koontz’ great achievement in this story, I think, is managing to keep the tension up in a plot which (I’ll try not to spoil it) is not actually the kind of narrative the reader starts out thinking it is. The climax of the story is a macabre processional, and the whole book could be described as a processional of sorts. I think that would have pleased Lewis, who made the climax of That Hideous Strength a sort of pageant as well.

All in all, I think Frankenstein: Dead and Alive was not all I hoped it would be, but it was very good in a way I didn’t expect. In spite of the (carefully modulated) genuine horror, this was a moving book about human relationships. It was a fast read, and I enjoyed it very much.