Recently, I acquired the e-book copy of Breathless by Dean Koontz. I used to be a huge fan of Dean Koontz. In High School I would be checking out his books almost every week until I gulped up the entire collection ...or so I thought until one day I discovered there was other names that Dean Koontz wrote under such as David Axton for Prison of Ice, Brian Coffey for several titles including The Face of Fear (one of my favorites!), Surrounded, The Voice of the Night and the Wall of Masks, there is also other pen names including some you may have heard of like Deanna Dwyer (yes, i was shocked too!) who wrote Children of the storm (excellent book!), Dance with the Devil, The Dark of Summer, Demon Child and Legacy of Terror, then there is K.R Dwyer who wrote Chase, Dragonfly, Face of Fear *re-released under Koontz* (I own this copy and Koontz), and Shattered *re-released under Koontz* ( I have not had the privilege of reading yet), John Hill's the Long Sleep, a variety of books by Leigh Nichols, Anthony North's Strike Deep, Richard Paige's Door to December, Owen West , and Aaron Wolfe. All of these authors and probably more are really Dean Koontz.
I have really enjoyed all of Dean Koontz works. Something I think happened when Trixie, his beloved dog, passed on. His writing grew a little weary and I started to really not enjoy his books anymore. I really enjoyed " Your heart belongs to me" that was a great book and I gulped that up in just a few short days. It was one of those books that I wanted more at the end but for good reasons. Then, I decided since that book was good I bought a copy of " Relentless". I read all of it. I read every single page of that book in just a few short days as well. I thought it was leading up to something, that something good was to come at the end. I found nothing good. I was bored and disappointed and wanted to cry for even making myself lose time reading this book. That same day I finished reading it I listed it on Ebay. Someone bought it, I hope they liked it better than I did. There was also the " Husband " book. It also had the same feel that it was actually leading somewhere and then boom another disappointment. I think Husband came before Relentless though.
This all leads up to the newest book I decided to give it a go and read " Breathless" . It was a little dry in the beginning and I still decided to give it a chance. I was really enjoying all the cast of characters. It started to feel like the old Koontz. I thought perhaps I could actually get into this book. It had that old Dean Koontz energy you find in most of his writings. It was one of the Koontz books that starts with some random guy that leads up to other characters that somehow all are tangled in one web with each other somehow.
Breathless starts off with this random guy Grady Adams. He is just your average everyday Joe that makes furniture for a living and has a dog named Merlin who seems to be an awesome dog. Then we have Camille Rivers who is this everyday average veterinarian who has had a bad past (they never say what) and basically has sworn to protect all living animals no matter the risk. I really hate to say this I don't know why Camille was even in this book except for that Grady found some "creatures" that were of interest to a veterinarian. I was lost about where these two met, how they knew each other,etc. Plus, when Camille came in the picture we lost interest in Grady right away. His story was done and that was that.
There was a lot of unanswered questions in this whole book. I wanted to know so much more about everyone and I was just brought to a loss about it all. I wanted to really know more about Puzzle and Riddle the "creatures " that Grady found or rather they found him. I wanted to understand the nature of these beings but at the end it is poorly wrapped up to no satisfaction what so ever. It pretty much ends that things are "okay" now and they all live happily ever after . Why were those creatures there? Where did they come from? What is behind those eyes that he talks about so much? How were these creatures going to make life on Earth more better? I mean the end of this book wrapped up so poorly that if it had been an actual book and not my e-reader I might have considered throwing it against the wall.
OH and Mr. Koontz who were the random twin characters in here Henry and Jim? We have an awesome bad guy, a semi-plot that might actually trickle down to something but instead have nothing to do with Puzzle or Riddle or anything for this matter except the fact that he just happened to live next door to Grady. OH! I also don't understand that when Camille finds Jim's wife dead in the cellar how she just walks away and tells Grady, " I think Jim killed his wife," nonchalantly . There was no police involved? No one wondered what happened to these guys they just sort of disappeared at the end. I have no idea what their purpose was in this book at all. I think, however, that it would make a great book in itself. It just felt like ideas he was tossing around and decided to throw it in the book for good measure.
There is also Tom Bigger who has also nothing to do with anyone and meets a nice Jewish couple who decide to help him find his parents and he winds up saving one of the characters in this book. There was also no mention to him or the Jewish couple after that. He had also nothing to do with Puzzle or Riddle and I still am confused about why he was even there.
I just wanted so much more from this book and I was so disappointed to find out my time was wasted thinking this was a classic Koontz. Instead, it was just another failure by him . In my opinion, I would hold my breath to read this novel. It is up to you.
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