Product Description

When artist Dylan O'Connor pulls into a motel off the Arizona interstate highway, all he wants to do is relax with his autistic brother Shepherd, and get a good night's sleep. Yet within the hour he finds himself bound, gagged and being injected with some mysterious fluid by a lunatic 'doctor' who claims that Dylan will be the carrier for 'his life's work'. Jillian Jackson, a comedian, is midway through her tour of seedy cocktail lounges and and second-rate comedy clubs, accompanied only by her pet pot plant Fred. Her plans for stardom are dramatically altered, however, when she too falls victim to the same eccentric scientist, who makes off with her beloved cadillac. The doctor warns his victims that he is being pursued and that they too are now targets. If they are caught, they will be killed. Both are sceptical, but when 3 black Chevrolet Suburbans come screaming into the motel carpark and Jillian's stolen car is found in flames, they begin to wonder if the lunatic doctor wasn't so mad after all...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1726323 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 496 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In By the Light of the Moon artist Dylan O'Connor is driving through Arizona with his autistic brother Shepherd, and decides to catch up on his sleep in a motel. But (as Hitchcock demonstrated) motels can be dangerous places, and Dylan is soon tied up, gagged and being pumped full of strange fluid by sinister doctor. At the same time, comedian Jillian Jackson is watching her career feebly played out against a succession of down-market comedy joints. All her dreams of changing her life are torpedoed when she, too, becomes a victim of the deranged scientist, who steals her car. Then begins a lunatic chase, involving the doctor and his victims, and the surfaces of reality quickly become very insubstantial.

As the plot suggests, Koontz's new book is quite unlike anything he has written before (or, for that matter, unlike anything by his contemporaries); the highly ingenious plotting is matched by some beguilingly off-kilter characterisation and a breathtaking pace that allows for little pause. One can only admire this writer's refusal to repeat himself: a phenomenon all too rare with so many other thriller writers simply recycling the same old material. --Barry Forshaw

About the Author
Dean Koontz was born into a very poor family and learned early on to escape into fiction. He lives in southern California with his wife, Gerda and a vivid imagination.

Customer Reviews

What a disappointment!
This was my first Dean Koontz novel and a thorough disappointment, especially bearing in mind how critically acclaimed a writer he is supposed to be.

The plot is wanting and in contrast to some of the earlier reviewers I have to say slow - paced. Koontz is spending far too much time on the thorough and often dragging description of his protagonists' visions, thereby neglecting the advancement of his plot.

Logically speaking, I was unable to understand why "nanobot - implants" would enable anyone to gain the ability to physically fold from one place to another.

Koontz's characters remain utterly on the surface. Jilly's annoying attributes and Koontz's forced humour at times render this book unbearable, and at some point I considered myself unable to finish the story.

The most pathetic part of the book remains the (thankfully) rushed ending, when - over a nice glass of wine - our protagonists announce their aim to become something akin to superheroes and vow to fight evil whenever they are faced by it, thus enabling Mr Koontz to produce a sequel. Please spare us!

Back to blistering form
...Admittedly, Koontz didn't give himself a brain bleed where the plot is concerned (the issues he tackles and exploits are far from cutting edge and inspirational, for they have been done to death in many another book). However, he has regained that taut and exhilarating style that turned books like "Dark Rivers of The Heart" and "Intensity" into utter page-turners. The pacing is breathless and pitch-perfect, and the characters are human and endearing, not like the cartoon buffoons of "From The Corner of His Eye" and "One Door Away From Heaven" (My preferred whipping boy).

Even though Koontz doesn't fully explore the issues he raises in his novel, and although the ending is a little thin, unsatisfying and goofy, this book is literary cocaine. The ideal way to forget how to sleep, eat, speak - and generally become a bat-blind and stone-deaf antisocial person. But, by god it's worth it. Buy the book. Devour it. Mr Koontz, you more than made up for the chronic sin that was "One Door Away From heaven". Cheers.

Awesome!!!
This is the first book I have read by Dean Koontz and it left me wanting more of the same. I have allways been a fan of Stephen King and no other author has come close to his literary genius untill now!

Dean Koontz has created a masterpiece whose characters are deep and true to their nature. Koonts ia able to explain the supernatural phenomenon so well that even the most sceptical of people will instantly believe it.

I reccommend this to anyone with a sense of adventure or with a depth of nature, as you will surely be able to empathise with these characters.