Sanctuary can be found in that kind of church—whether Baptist or otherwise—in which, on Sundays, rollicking gospel songs are sung with gusto and booming piano. Churches in which Latin is sometimes spoken, candles are lit for the intention of the dead, incense is sometimes burned, and fonts of holy water stand at the entrances—those are also secure. Synagogues are good refuges too.

Here’s a nice little slice of pure Dean Koontz. The Moonlit Mind, a novella available cheap for your Kindle, has many elements that will be no surprise coming from Koontz—a precocious child on the run from an abusive situation (here occult ritual abuse), a dog possessing preternatural wisdom, and helpless innocence pitted against powerful evil.

The story is told in two narrative threads—the present, in which twelve-year-old Crispin lives in hiding in an unnamed city, his only friends his dog Harley (who finds him money to live on), and Amity, another person in hiding, a girl who lives inside a local department store.

The second thread is the back story, in which we slowly learn how Crispin, along with his younger brother and sister, was raised in great luxury in a mysterious mansion, and how his siblings disappeared one after the other, as Crispin gradually came to realize a horrible truth…

Good story. Excellent writing. Endearing (and horrifying) characters. Apparently The Moonlit Mind is a teaser for a longer book coming up, 77 Shadow Street, which will involve the same city.

Recommended for teens and older.