The adage about familiarity and the contempt it often breeds doesn’t hold true when it comes to thrillers and the audiences that appreciate them. The Lee Childs and Lisa Scottolines of that genre make their bones by finding a formula, and sometimes a popular character, and sticking with it, providing a literary niche for themselves and a familiar place to which their loyal readers can escape.
And so it is with Dean Koontz (“Odd Thomas,” “Odd Hours”) and his quirky, paranoid thrillers. Combining the familiar (a hero who is a fry cook, a smart dog, popular songs and surfing) with the unusual (a friend or girlfriend with near- genius I.Q., a supernatural ability or scientifically acquired ability), and throwing in government or mob-related conspiracies, Koontz turns out one or two thrillers a year.
But sometimes he throws his readers a curve and challenges his own writerly parameters. On those occasions, the author cobbles up books (“Dark Rivers of the Heart” and “Intensity”) that remind us Koontz is a gifted writer who can surprise even the most hardened and cynical critic, as he does with his latest, “Your Heart Belongs to Me.”
Starting with familiar tropes, Koontz introduces readers to Ryan Perry, Internet whiz-kid and mogul, who is living the life of Riley and courting a beautiful and (naturally) brilliant young woman named Samantha, who is a writer. They share a love of, and knack for, surfing.
It is while surfing that Ryan discovers there is a blemish on his oh-so-perfect existence. A trip to the doctor leads him to the discovery that he has a serious heart problem. But not before he manages to dream up several paranoid scenarios that might explain his sudden failing of health — naturally, one of them includes a premise involving his girlfriend.
All of that paranoia, and mistrust, serves up some bad karma. So when Ryan manages to get his problem corrected, he finds himself at the wrong end of a knife — and listening to a seemingly crazed woman tell him that his heart belongs to her.
Even more strange, the woman is the spitting image of the dead donor from whom Ryan just received a new lease on life. Is it a delusion brought on by his weakened state of mind? Or is the woman some sort of supernatural entity intent on haunting him into an early grave?
All of this is familiar stuff to most Koontz readers. As will be some of the machinations by which Ryan learns the truth behind his strange, menacing, knife- wielding attacker. What sets this book apart from the majority of Koontz thrillers are the revelations at novel’s end. Instead of the solution to a mystery with a happy (or least affirmative) ending tacked on, Koontz gives readers a fable containing moral ambiguity and musings about the nature of good and evil that exists within us all.
It’s a sudden left turn that lifts this book up from being a solid- but-familiar, best-seller-type thriller to a genuine work of pop art and puts “Your Heart Belongs to Me” squarely in the column of must- reads.
Dorman T. Shindler is a freelance writer in Melbourne, Australia.
Fiction
Your Heart Belongs to Me, by Dean Koontz, $27
