The Darkest Evening of the Year |  | Author: Dean R. Koontz
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $44.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  193 reviews
Sales Rank: 6845023
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 1
ISBN: 0739332953
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780739332955
ASIN: 0739332953
Publication Date: November 27, 2007
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The Darkest Ice Cream of the Year by Dean Koontz I once said writing a novel is sometimes like making love and sometimes like having a tooth pulled--and sometimes like making love while having a tooth pulled. I arrived at one of those joyful yet excruciating moments while working on The Darkest Evening of the Year. Because I am obsessive about the revision of each page--the word fussbudget is embarrassingly apt when I am brooding over whether to use a comma or a semicolon--I have more than once held on to a manuscript until the drop-dead date for delivery. When that date rolled around for this book, I had written everything, but I was unwilling to send all of it to my editor. I withheld the last fifty pages for another four days, causing a quiet panic in those at my publishing house who are responsible for meeting production deadlines. Although the book was done, I felt that something was wrong with Chapter 63. The action worked, the characters were in character, the mood was sustained...but something felt wrong with it, some fine point of the villain's motivation. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I worked 12-hour days, trying to identify the source of my doubt, but couldn't specify it to my satisfaction. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. Previously, my worst struggles with a story had come in the first two-thirds, and the final third had been, if not a sweet swift toboggan run, at least a sleigh ride. Sunday, I got up at 6:00 and set to work, revising, looking for the thorn I could feel but couldn't see--and ended up working 22 hours, eating at my desk, before tumbling to the problem at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning. "Eureka!" I cried, but I was so weary and my voice was so weak that my shout of jubilation came out as a squeak. The revisions required to Chapter 63 were minor, but after working 58 hours in four days, after having passed a night without sleep, I was unable to focus sharply enough to get them done in the little time that remained before the production schedule would be derailed. In desperation, I turned to that source of creative energy and literary enlightenment that is without equal: ice cream. I shuffled to the kitchen and snared a Dreyer's Slow-Churned Vanilla Almond Crunch bar from the freezer. I devoured this sweet-and-creamy muse, and felt the scales lift from my eyes; inspiration sparkled between my ears. I finished the revisions and e-mailed the final version of Chapter 63 to my editor with not a minute to spare. Although the American Heart Association will take issue with me, my advice to young writers stuck on a scene is to stop worrying about your arteries and give your wheel-spinning imagination what it needs to find traction: a tasty shot of fat and sugar. --Dean Koontz, October 2007
Product Description
With each of his #1 New York Times bestsellers, Dean Koontz has displayed an unparalleled ability to entertain and enlighten readers with novels that capture the essence of our times even as they bring us to the edge of our seats. Now he delivers a heart-gripping tour de force he’s been waiting years to write, at once a love story, a thrilling adventure, and a masterwork of suspense that redefines the boundaries of primal fear—and of enduring devotion.
Amy Redwing has dedicated her life to the southern California organization she founded to rescue abandoned and endangered golden retrievers. Among dog lovers, she’s a legend for the risks she’ll take to save an animal from abuse. Among her friends, Amy’s heedless devotion is often cause for concern. To widower Brian McCarthy, whose commitment she can’t allow herself to return, Amy’s behavior is far more puzzling and hides a shattering secret.
No one is surprised when Amy risks her life to save Nickie, nor when she takes the female golden into her home. The bond between Amy and Nickie is immediate and uncanny. Even her two other goldens, Fred and Ethel, recognize Nickie as special, a natural alpha. But the instant joy Nickie brings is shadowed by a series of eerie incidents. An ominous stranger. A mysterious home invasion.
And the unmistakable sense that someone is watching Amy’s every move and that, whoever it is, he’s not alone.
Someone has come back to turn Amy into the desperate, hunted creature she’s always been there to save. But now there’s no one to save Amy and those she loves. From its breathtaking opening scene to its shocking climax, The Darkest Evening of the Year is Dean Koontz at his finest, a transcendent thriller certain to have readers turning pages until dawn.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 188 more reviews...
 The Thrill Is Gone July 5, 2008
There was a time, not too long ago even, when the sight of a new Dean Koontz book on the shelve sent me to my wallet to see if I could afford an impulse buy. Dragon Tears, Mr Murder, Velocity, Strangers. Each book kept me riveted and I, more often than not, read the book in one or two days.
Sadly, I can still read Mr. Koontz in one or two days, but not for the same reasons. The prose is nowhere near up to the standards of his older novels. The characters are flat, the stories are lifeless, and if you don't happen to love dogs (and I mean REALLY love dogs. Like to an insane degree), the story will just come off as overdone, preachy and pointless.
In this book, he tried to go back to his roots with the psychopathic-for-no-real-reason villain. But I think it's been so long since he did that, that he's lost the ability to do it believably.
Mr. Koontz has inadvertantly published a parody of himself. The thrill I once felt seeing his name on a bookstore shelf has been replaced with a gentle tug of recognition when I see it in a library. I keep checking out his books, hoping for a hint of what I once loved, but so far I have been burned on "The Good Guy," "The Husband" (for the longest time, I could have sworn those two were the same book), and even "Brother Odd," felt like a pale imitation of "Odd Thomas" (which, BTW, may have been the last Dean Koontz book I truly enjoyed. Perhaps the series is an attempt to hold on to that). And don't even get me started on the Frankenstein books.
I'm probably going to keep checking Koontz books out from the library, and they're still probably going to sit, unread, next to my chair until the due date more often than not.
I cannot begin to say how much it pains me to write a review THIS BAD about an author I used to read nonstop. I would finish one book and then immediately head out to find another. I had a Dean Koontz section on my bookshelf at home.
I would hope that Mr Koontz would stop writing books like this, but his two loves at the moment seem to be religion and dogs, and after one or two books, that really starts to wear out it's welcome. I'll mourn the Koontz of old, and sadly shake my head at this new, lovey-dovey dog-lover Koontz that replaced him.
It IS possible to write a love story to dogs and still fit in a great story (just read "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" if you don't believe me). Koontz just doesn't seem willing to take time out of his four-or-five-so-so books a year schedule to write one really great one.
 Inspiration June 27, 2008
Of course this book isn't up to par with some of the scariest mind-boggling material that DK has given us in the past. However, I believe that this book is the one that helps us feel closest to his heart.
sick, sad and stupid June 25, 2008
Just got done listening to the audio book. I had to keep listening to see how much sicker it could get. Unbelievable villains that are so silly they are laughable. Save your money, go to a book store, read the last page of the book and see how STUPID the ending is.
Wanted more June 25, 2008
Most of this book was great. I love Koontz caracture devolepment.I just wanted a better ending. I felt like it was wrapped up to fast and left me unfulfuilled.
You've Got to be Kidding! June 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is unpleasant to admit that a great one has feet of clay, especially a great one whom one has come to expect has no flaws artistically. But such is the case when I just completed reading Dean Koontz's The Darkest Evening of the Year. It is an example of the courtesan revealing herself to be nothing more than a whore with good make-up.
The great Koontz traits are here--innocents in peril, deranged evil psychopaths on the march toward Armageddon, righteous causes beautifully expressed, lavish prose that requires one to read slowly and repeatedly--but this book is a mess. It's a great man writing simply to write, either for money or expediency, but without conviction or compelling need. A pay check will do.
Koontz, when working with his favorite dogs, golden retrievers, can still call forth a tear to the most jaded eye. But really! This is just a mish-mush. He creates a sinister psychopath, Vanessa, who is nothing more than a wan imitation of his great female nutsoid, Datura. This girl has no reason to exist, she has no background, family, or believability that would have produced such a monster except for Koontz's desire to shock us.
Then there are the trademark Koontz tropes--the nice guy who kills at the end of a chapter, so coldly, so irrationally. The weird but believable sub characters who populate an underworld we hope does not exist. The use of the word "susurration." (I wait for that and the use of the word "butter" to make sure I am truly in "le monde Koontz.") But this book is all formula, no substance.
Let's see. There is the demimonde of a child who is inarticulate but wise, oh so wise. Dogs have prescience and supernatural goodness and direction. Intuition trumps all rationality and reason. Coincidence is accepted as a "not to be questioned" fact of life. This book, in short, drips with the formulaic Koontz fantasies that can make even his best works descend into laughable, eye-rolling nonsense that sabotages his considerable skill and creativity.
I have a golden retriever who is the love of my life, but he is not capable of sensing evil, as are Koontz's dogs. I am glad that there are people so dedicated to their preservation and protection that a whole subspecies of people have evolved to create evolved habitats for them. But that these dogs have become so evolved as to be able to predict and direct human events, including sprouting wings and reversing time and tragedy, is just too preposterous for words. Dean Koontz is drinking and petting his golden retriever and growing lachrymose and insane.
This book adheres to the Swiss Cheese School of Dilapidated Writing. Holes, holes, everywhere there are holes in this inane plot. He pulls on his successes in other works, recycles them, and fails to substantiate any coherence. The arch villain, Harrow, is not really who he says he is. Harrow seems to have evolved in the writing and given a plot twist that is jejune. I didn't buy it for a minute.
Vanessa is his true downfall--incredibly creepy and unlikeable but totally unbelievable on every level. Datura, in Odd Thomas, on the other hand, was totally great and believable. Vanessa is just a piece of Koontz schlock. Oh look how horrible I am--I will abuse and kill an autistic child. Right.
I hate it when Koontz subverts his talents for a paycheck, knowing that his books will sell, no matter how implausible. He can, and does, create a turn of phrase better than anyone else, but there are lines in this book that are truly laughable. Pseudo profundity is expected to cancel plot deficiency and character plausibility. Well, Dean, it doesn't. This book is neither moving nor exciting. It is simply a sentimental wallow in Golden Retriever Uber Alles nonsense.
I have loved Dean Koontz's talented forays into the world of the insane and the frightening, but this book reveals his predilection to trivialize his talent for personal gain. If he has no better ideas for a book, then he should quit writing. Every great artist needs a gray eminence who will tell him that his work should not see the light of day, but apparently Koontz doesn't have this person at his publisher's. He needs to have this person to say, "Dean, this is crap--delete it, burn it if you have printed it, but don't put this out there."
Let's make a list of the absurdities of this story: Amy Redwing gets a call from a nun dead for ten years. Brian, a low-level talent of architecture, suddenly develops a skill for drawing of a golden retriever, drawings which are of unmatched excellence but which inspire Amy to do the equivalent of "That's nice." A murdered child channels herself to get revenge through a golden retriever that has her same name. An abused child also channels the dead girl with the same dream. Amy is an orphan, plus two, who is befriended by a golden retriever in a convent that adopts the dog and eulogizes it in what is virtually a pagan ritual. Now, this kind of nonsense goes on and on, but it all adds up to some kind of kinky catharsis for Koontz, but not for the reader. The reader is left wondering about the sanity of the author and the publishing house.
Dean Koontz has always walked the tightrope between realism and the supernatural, but here he allows himself to fall over into the realm of fantasy and unbelievability. He allows himself to wallow in the maudlin, forsaking his duty to his readers to present a plausible explanation for the brush with the fantastic.
This book is poison, without any redeeming virtues. Avoid it at all costs, but do not ignore the rest of the Koontz body of work. Someone failed him here.
Final Note: The title has nothing to do with the story whatsoever!
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