Being paper-thin would be an improvement over what we get here. The pasts of the characters, rather than actually adding to the story, are just there as filler. All of this stays entertaining for approximately 100 pages. For the mandatory Dean Koontz creepy character, we get Henry. We also are introduced to Camillia Rivers, a local veterinarian with a dark past (are there any other kind in a Koontz novel?), who also gets involved with these two mystery animals. I don’t want to go into it too much, because the mystery behind these animals is the driving force of the story–well, what little of it there is. The main inciting event deals with Grady Adams, an ex-military type, and his dog, Merlin (it’s a Dean Koontz novel, of course the PoV has a dog), as they discover a pair of unexplainable animals in the field by their (Adams’ and his dog’s) home. We are introduced to a few characters that are decent, and that are put in interesting situations. Breathless? Not even close…unless you count the aftermath of my screaming in frustration at having to finish this book.īREATHLESS starts out fine…good even. Surely you can hear the built-in marketing campaign that comes with the title of the novel? The new Dean Koontz novel will leave you… BREATHLESS! How I wish that were true. Dean Koontz usually can usually fill that role. Every now-and-again I need light reading. Do they serve a purpose in my reading schedule? Definitely.

I can appreciate the transition he made into straight-forward thrillers that he has published recently (VELOCITY, THE GOOD GUY, THE HUSBAND). Let me state, for the record, that I actually enjoy some the stories that Koontz writes. The result is more like…a perfect train wreck. Unfortunately, BREATHLESS by Dean Koontz ( Amazon), doesn’t meld separate ideas into a perfect storm. They become a “perfect storm” of sorts, and often lead to an amazing novel. When talking to authors I know, I hear frequently of that moment when several seemingly unrelated ideas come together.

Dean koontz breathless review