REVIEW: FEAR NOTHING by Dean Koontz

I saw the technique at work here, and became frustrated.

Some books can pull you in without revealing their techniques, but not this one.

Oh no. So often Koontz withholds vital information by cutting to backstory, or by getting the character to say 'I wasn't ready for the truth yet,' or some such cop out, that prevents him from revealing plot info when you, the reader, are ready for it.

Yes, it made 'Fear Nothing' a page turner. But I found myself rapidly turning pages because I was skimming swathes of back story and blocks of description to get to the twists.

And sometimes it took forever. Sometimes the delay was too long. Sometimes scenes went on too long, like near the start when Christopher Snow was running away, freaked by a cat and escaping into some underground pipe.

I did sympathise with the protagonist (yes, it's Christopher Snow) because of his medical condition, but ended up frustrated by everyone else in Moonlight Bay who all, without exception, took so long telling him what they knew or took great delight in spinning out what he needed to know, that it was as if they were waiting to get killed before they could reveal their information.  The whole approach just didn't ring true. I felt myself shouting at the characters, "just tell him what you know and stop fucking about talking about other stuff." I felt Snow should have been this frustrated too, but he seemed unflappable.

On the plus side, Koontz's attention to detail was good, his descriptions vivid. There was just too much 'I'm going to make you wait for the juicy bits' that I ended up seeing through the technique and becoming thoroughly annoyed by it.

** (Two out of five)