One Door Away From Heaven
Dean Koontz

In a dusty trailer park on the far edge of the California dream, Michelina Bellsong contemplates the choices she has made. At twenty eight, she wants to change the direction of her troubled life but can't find her way - until a new family settles into the rental trailer next door and she meets the young girl who will lead her on a remarkable quest.
Despite the brace she must wear on her deformed left leg, and her withered left hand, nine year old Leilani Klonk radiates a buoyant and indomitable spirit that inspires Micky. Beneath Leilani's effervescence, however, Micky comes to sense a quiet desperation that the girl dares not express. Leilani's mother is lost in drugs. The girl's stepfather, Preston Maddoc, is educated but threatening. He has moved the family from place to place as he fanatically investigates UFO sightings, striving to make contact, claiming to have had a vision that by Lelani's tenth birthday aliens will either heal her or take her away to a better life on their world. Slowly, ever more troubling details emerge in Leilani's conversations with Micky. Most chilling is Micky's discovery that Leilani had an older brother, also disabled, who vanished after Maddoc took him into the woods one night and is now "gone to the stars".
Leilani's tenth birthday is approaching. Micky is convinced the girl will be dead by that day. While the child protection bureaucracy gives Micky the runaround, the Maddoc family slips away into the night. Micky sets out across America to track and find them, alone and afraid but for the first time living for something bigger than herself. She finds herself pitted against an adversary, Preston Maddoc, as fearsome as he is cunning. Yet Micky pursues her quest, and her passion, her courage, draw a burned out detective to her side. Hundreds of miles away, a motherless boy and a homeless dog begin an even more astonishing journey. Ahead for them all lie incredible peril, startling discoveries, and paths that will draw them through terrible darkness to unexpected light.

In the same vein as most of Koontz's other books, this one also follows people on the run. Leilani's psychotic father is planning to kill her, and Micky, a former neighbor, is trying to chase her down and save her. Meanwhile, a not of this earth boy and his dog are also on the run - from a sinister force and from the United States government. These various lives will come together to help each other in the end.

Speaking of the end, I have to dock half a snail for it. I don't want to ruin the ending, but let's just say if you're a dog person, chances are you'll like it. If you're not (and I am not - I am a cat and sugar glider person), then you might be a little ticked that dogs are the answer to everything. So, for that, it's being docked.

Other than my one complaint about the ending, the book really is a good read. It's interesting to see how all of the various people come together and the story of Leilani and her family is as fascinating as it is horrifying.

There's plenty of action to keep a reader involved and there's also plenty of character development so that you end up caring about the characters, especially Leilani.

While the chapters skip around from person to person, they still flow into the narrative quite well. I would recommend this book with the warning that the ending will probably elicit an eyeroll from a lot of people - especially those that don't think that dogs are the end all be all of the universe.

My rating: Three and a half snails.