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Wednesday, November 22, 2006


Velocity by Dean Koontz

So a serial killer decides to make you make some really nasty moral choices about who he should kill. For example, he says, “I’m gonna kill someone tomorrow. If you go to the police, then I’ll kill a beautiful young schoolteacher. If you don’t, I’ll kill an old woman who is active in the community.” Now, either way, you’re basically complicit in the killing – in a sense. So then, add a financee in a coma, a bunch of red herrings, and a killer that’s always one step ahead of you and you’ve got Velocity. It’s pure pulp pap, but Koonz does know how to write a page turner.

I have a few complaints, mostly that Koonz is a terrible stylist, that the novel is really contrived, that there’s way too little real horror, etc. But hey, for $5.99 at an airport bookstore, what can you expect? This is bad, trashy horror. Real students of the genre would be much better suited to explore elsewhere. But if you’re a student of mass market success and formulaic novelism, then this might be worth looking at.

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