Product Description

Frank Pollard awakens in an alley, knowing nothing but his name and that he is in danger. Over the next few days he develops a fear of sleep because when he wakes he finds blood on his hands and bizarre and terrifying objects in his pockets. Distraught and desperate, Frank begs husband-and wife detective team Bobby and Julie Dakota to get the bottom of his mysterious, amnesiac fugues. It seems a simple job, but they are drawn into ever-darkening realms where they encounter the nightmare, hate-filled figure stalking Frank. And their lives are threatened, as is that of Julie’s gentle, Down’s-syndrome brother, Thomas.

To Thomas, death is the ‘bad place’ from which there is no return. But as each of them ultimately learns, there are equally bad places in the world of the living, places so steeped in evil that, in contrast, death seems almost to be a relief...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162413 in Books
• Published on: 1991-01-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
Koontz's last novel, Midnight, scooted to the top of the best-seller lists - and no wonder. For Koontz now writes the sort of blockbuster horror novel that Stephen King ground-broke: driving, character-rich, panoramic spook-epics dripping with sentiment and pop philosophy. This latest, a typical Koontz genre amalgam - of a serial-killer novel and a psi adventure - is a powerhouse example. Not one for linear plotting, Koontz here crisscrosses four basic storylines, at first at dizzying speed. In California, Frank Pollard wakes up, amnesiac, with a satchel stuffed with cash, pursued by a shadowy figure who streams destructive rays of blue light. Nearby, cute-but-tough married p.i. couple Bobby and Julie Dakota stake out a software heist. Down the road, Julie's Down's-syndrome brother, a latent psychic, frets that "The Bad Thing's coming." And, also nearby, that Thing - Candy, a villain of monstrous psychic powers - leaves his decaying home and his autoerotic, psychic twin sisters to slash and drink the blood of several victims. Rapidly, the story lines converge as Frank, who finds himself waking up time and again with further bizarre possessions - including an insect that excretes red diamonds - hires the Dakotas to dig out his identity. Soon the couple learns that Frank is unwittingly teleporting himself all over earth and beyond, collecting weird souvenirs as he stays just one step ahead of Candy - his brother and a conscious teleporter who's after Frank for having killed their evil mother. In the novel's centerpiece, Bobby Dakota is caught up on a terrifying teleport traveling with Frank around the globe and into deep space, Candy in hot pursuit; the two shake Candy, but the killer - a mutation born of hermaphroditic self-impregnation - lays waste to most of the Dakotas' friends and loved ones before he, his vile sisters, and Frank are finally destroyed in the Sturmund-Drang finale. Wildly eclectic - drawing freely on sources from film (The Fly), TV (Moonlighting), and nonhorror lit (The Once and Future King, Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels) - but not derivative: Koontz shrewdly refashions the borrowings and welds them to his own inventions (the hermaphrodite premise is new to the genre) to deliver what, despite a scattered start and some heavy-handed villainizing, turns out to be another marvelously boisterous, scare-and-suspense-packed entertainment - and certain best-seller. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
Frank Pollard awakens in an alley, knowing nothing but his name and that he is in danger. Over the next few days, he develops a fear of sleep because when he wakes, he finds blood on his hands and bizarre and terrifying objects in his pockets. Distraught and desperate, Frank begs husband-and-wife detective team Bobby and Julie Dakota to get the bottom of his mysterious, amnesiac fugues. It seems a simple job, but they are drawn into ever-darkening realms where they encounter the nightmare, hate-filled figure stalking Frank. And their lives are threatened, as is that of Julie's gentle, Down's-syndrome brother, Thomas. To Thomas, death is the 'bad place' from which there is no return. But as each of them ultimately learns, there are equally bad places in the world of the living, places so steeped in evil that, in contrast, death seems almost to be a relief...

About the Author
Dean Koontz was born into a very poor family and learned early on to escape into fiction. His novels have sold over 200 million copies worldwide and more than thirty have appeared on national and international bestseller lists. He lives in southern California with his wife, Gerda and a vivid imagination.

Customer Reviews

Classic, nasty Dean Koontz
Who else but Dean Koontz could cram incestuous lesbian twins, cannibalistic cats, mutation through teleportation and an unredeemedly evil, testosterone-driven subhuman villain into one book?

From the opening moment when Frank Pollard wakes up in an alley with no memory, to the last page of its twisty plot, Koontz never quite finishes piling up the shocks here, never lets up the pace for one paragraph. Bobby and Julie Dakota, the married private detectives hired to try to discover Frank's missing past, are so very lovely, so head-over-heels in love and so perfectly in tune with one another that it can only be a matter of time before something really nasty happens to them. And it does.

This is truly a horror novel worthy of the name. I've pretty much despaired now of finding a book that will actually scare me: but this did all the next best things, shocking, distressing, gloriously well-plotted... Koontz is the best horror novelist beginning with K that I know!

Classic Koontz
We need writers like Koontz. It's authors like him who break the mould, save us from mundanity and keep fiction fresh and innovative without loosing a moment's entertainment value. He dares to be absurd and outrageous with his storylines, and does it with a touch of genius. If you want something truly original, yet gripping and fast-paced, DK is your man. THE BAD PLACE is typically outlandish fiction for Koontz. It touches on themes such as teleportation, telepathy, mutation and aliens, all in one story!

Originality of plot is not the only great DK quality. In THE BAD PLACE, he shows us what he's really capapble of on a techincal level with his writing. He gets into the minds of some very interesting characters and lets us see their thoughts, yet all in 3rd-person perspective. Brilliantly executed stuff.

My only criticism with THE BAD PLACE, as with many other DK books I've read, is the sickly-sweet chliche ending in those closing pages. But I suppose that's all part of the fun.

One of Koontz's best!
This is one of my favourite DK books. Interesting characters, fast paced and a story line that will have you hooked.