The Husband
Dean Koontz
Hardcover (USA) version
Bantam Dell ISBN-10: 0553804790
Copyright ©2006 Dean Koontz
This book from Dean Koontz, is by far his best I have ever read. I couldn’t put the damn thing down. It starts at a high pace, gives no clues to the reader so everything is a surprise and it doesn’t suddenly slow down like some of his other books (Odd Thomas for example. I stopped reading at that slow part. It suddenly bored me, so I tossed it away–others seem to love it so much that it spawned another. I guess I like hard hitting. Keep the stakes rising and keep the speed).
Mitch is a gardener. He owns his own business and employs one other worker. He has one truck and about eleven thousand dollars in the bank. One morning, he gets a call, “We have your wife. You can get her back for two million cash.” To prove to him they are serious they shoot a man walking a dog.
These kidnappers aren’t idiots, they know what they are doing. They give him directions on what to do and how to get the money.
Koontz has given us a perfectly fucked-up family. The parents are both doctors of behavioral psychology at UCI. Their children are to address them by name, Daniel for daddy, Kathy for mummy. “Mere biological relationship should not confer social status.” There is a ‘Learning Room’ on the top floor. All three children stayed in that sensory deprivation room for long periods of time. Mitch spent 20 days inside. Daniel had strong views of parenting, and used his family (kids) as test subjects.
Growing up in the Rafferty family was very difficult. Mitch is seen as a failure, his will was never broken. Somehow he was able to handle the learning room and his parents style of upbringing. We never meet his sister but we do meet his brother who has no guilt, embarrassment or anything else that his parents consider weaknesses. A major part of this tense thriller involves his brother.
And it is here where the plot take an unexpected turn. (Never fear, I shant tell you what that be, kiddies.)
The book is very choppy in parts where I think Koontz wanted to slow it a tad. There’s a lot of description regarding the weather, and although it helps the plot in one aspect, I see no other use for it.
Koontz also drops us inside the mind of Mitch’s wife, Holly. I hated these sections yet they will make a movie better (and yes a movie is in production which will increase book sales). Why did I hate them? I didn’t care about Holly or her world. I didn’t care about the sensitive kidnapper who was a walking, breathing advertisement for Mexico. His belief in the supernatural gives Holly an idea for escape.
This is a great book and you should have already read it and not waited for slow Lee to write a review about the book. Yep, I read The Glory Bus after The Husband and ended up writing this review second. Oh well.
Don’t expect this book to be a literary masterpiece, this book is pure genre. A thriller in the true sense and I think it will make a great movie. Let’s hope Koontz has more luck with this movie than his others, which were average at best.
