Strangers
Dean Koontz

A terrifying and truly deadly secret - an eternal riddle come to reality - is what the protagonists of this relentlessly gripping novel subconsciously share. Not one of them knows what the secret is, now do they know each other. All they do know is that a special terror has come to dominate and warp their lives. For each victim the torture is different.
- For Dominick Corvaisis, in Laguna Beach, California, a writer on the verge of his first success, it means compulsive and increasingly dangerous sleepwalking and awakening to cryptic and sinister messages on his word processor.
- For young doctor Ginger Weiss in Boston, it means that unrelated objects - a pair of black gloves worn by a stranger, water swirling down a drain - have the power to send her into sudden blackouts that threaten her surgical career.
- For Father Brendan Cronin in Chicago, an idealistic young curate, it means a precipitate loss of faith one morning when he hurls away the sacred vessels at Mass.
- For Jack Twist in New York, an embittered ex-POW and safecracker par excellence, it means a searing wave of conscience.
- For seven year old Marcie Monatella in Las Vegas, it means zombielike trances when she does nothing but draw pictures of a scarlet moon.
- For Ernie Block, ex-Marine motel owner in Elko County, Nevada, it means a new fear of the dark so numbing that the approach of dusk reduces him to cowering paralysis.
These and other Strangers are utterly mystified until a pattern of puzzling clues and tentative contacts begins to surface. What could these disparate individuals have shared that would make powerful and ruthless agents strive so hard to make them forget it? Finding the answer, the Strangers stumble toward one another, leading to a stunning climax that will change their lives forever and provide the reader of this masterfully crafted novel with an experience haunting and unforgettable.

As with many of Koontz's novels, this one involves people on the run, usually from a government agency. Though this one has a few twists to it that the others do not. In this one, it's more than one man and one woman on the run. Also, at the beginning when each character is having serious mental issues, none of them know they're on the run or that someone is after them. It isn't until Ginger has a breakthrough hypnotic session with a friend and until people start to gather at the Tranquility Motel that they realize something is going on. Something deep and dark that involves them all.

They saw something, the summer before last, something that the government did not want them to remember and so they were brainwashed for that period of time. But in some, the brainwashing is crumbling, leaving them with odd phobias and the like.

What they saw is predictable by the reader, and yet still interesting while reading the author's take on it.

Normally I would give this five snails, but I need to drop it one for some inconsistencies. Ernie's fear of the dark, Father Brendon's loss of faith, and Sandy's boost of confidence really don't fit in with what they saw and experienced. For that reason, I'm giving this four snails.

I would recommend this both to Koontz fans and those who have not read Koontz. While the source of what they experienced becomes rather transparent as you're reading this, it's still a really good read.

My rating: Four out of five snails.