Friday's Forgotten Book: Dean Koontz: Shattered (1973)

I've never read much Dean Koontz and my impression of his later and longer work (see here) has not been very good, but Shattered proved out to be short, gripping and brisk. It's one of Koontz's early books, published initially under his K. W. Dwyer pseudonym (and later on published as Dean Koontz), and still it tells a full-bloodied tale of full-bloodied people.

The premise is not very different from Richard Matheson's and Steven Spielberg's Duel which is two years senior, so Koontz may have had it in mind. Shattered also differs from Matheson's work in that the chase is personal in tone. A dark, mysterious van is behind two drivers, a young boy and the boyfriend of his older sister, who's a father figure to the kid. They don't know who drives the van, but Koontz shows he's a menace in the chapters narrated through the mysterious driver.

The ending is a bit too abrupt and there are some characters of which I didn't know whether they really were necessary. But Shattered is still a
suspenseful book that feels for its doomed characters.

This came out in Finnish in 1994 from Book Studio under the title Varjostaja. See the Finnish cover here.

More Forgotten Books here.

Dean R. Koontz: Watchers

I think this is the first book I've read by Dean R. Koontz. I wanted to have something long to read during Christmas, but this proved to be too long! I had to drop some other books from my holiday reading list because of it, ones like Scott O'Dell's The King's Fifth (1966). Since the holidays are now over, I'll have to start reading work-related books again.

I did finish Watchers (Ääniä yössä in Finnish, meaning Voices in the Night), since the premise was interesting and the book was quite suspenseful at times, but the sentimental moments between the two main characters got at time too soft for me. I would've cut some 100 pages out of it, and I don't think the book would've suffered.

Watchers came out in 1987 and seems like Koontz's books have only gotten longer. What's with it? I understand the comfort of a long book, but c'mon, I want to read some other books too! I got to think more about this when we went to see The Hobbit with my daughter. As you well know, it's almost three hours long and it's going to be in three-part serial, nine hours in all! Who's behind all this? Tolkien might be himself one to blame with his 1,000-page books (well, The Hobbit is only 300 pages), but then again he wanted The Lord of the Rings to be published in one piece, not as a trilogy. After his publisher's decision though, everything has had to be published in three pieces, hence also The Hobbit trilogy.

Is it Stephen King then? I seem to remember he was one of the foremost bestseller writers to go for 400 or 500 pages - and accordingly Koontz followed him. (But then again, some of the fifties' bestsellers were quite long, i.e. The Thin Red Line. Or talk about Gone With the Wind!)

Or is it television? I got to thinking they could've done a TV series from The Hobbit. It could've easily been even longer, just like The Wire or The Sopranos. Are they trying to compete with these ever-continuing TV series that have long story arcs? Many of the sophisticated viewers go now for TV and series like the two mentioned above or The Game of Thrones and others and shy away from the hustle and bustle of movies like X-men or Transformers? The longer, the more serious? Is it really so?

Sorry, this got out of hand. I didn't say much about Watchers, and suffice to say that I liked The Hobbit moderately. I did think it was a bit too long, but then again I wasn't bored. Some of Peter Jackson's more serious moments are pretty clichéd, though. I'm not sure whether I'll be reading more of Koontz's longer books, but I'll be waiting the other parts in The Hobbit serial.

No, wait a second: I've read one of Koontz's early crime novels as by Brian Coffey. That one (The Wall of Masks) was brisk and short. I also liked it more than Watchers.

Featured is the Finnish cover, with typography by Marjaana Virta. I like it better than the actual picture in the cover, which is American in origin.

Michael Connelly: Echo Park

I've been having a vacation and reading all sorts of books and graphic novels (I really liked Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which I'd never read), but it seems I'm running out of time to read all the books I meant to. I'm blaming Dean Koontz, whose Watchers I've been reading. It's a pretty good horror thriller, but it's too long! (I'll get back to the book shortly, once I've finished it.)

But Michael Connelly's Echo Park (2006; Sokkelokuja in Finnish) I finished with ease. Connelly is real comfort reading to me, and I don't mind saying that, since he's also always got some edge in his books. Connelly handles his dark materials (sic) easily but with verve, and his writing is smooth and simple without being simplistic. He's not a great stylist like Chandler or a great innovator like Ellroy, but he does very well what he does. His plots are also intricate and they involve some deep stuff without being heavy-handed or didactic.

Echo Park isn't one of the best Connellys (the plot is a bit too straightforward), but I still liked the heck out of it. I'm not so fond of Connelly's Terry McCaleb or Mickey Haller books, but Harry Bosch is a favourite. I remember when I interviewed Connelly and he said he's always imagined Donald Sutherland as the film version of Bosch. This may seem weird, but not long ago I watched Claude Chabrol's rarely-seen Ed McBain film Blood Relatives with Donald Sutherland. He's very good and convincing as McBain's Steve Carella, who's a blueprint for all the film cops. I can see him as Bosch, no problem.

By the way, it was nice to see both Duane Swierczynski and Sarah Weinman being Tuckerized in Echo Park.