The Husband

Dean Koontz

6/9/2006

Mitch Rafferty is a landscaper who owns his own small business with one employee. He has to be concerned with the cost of gas and groceries. So can this chilling call be real? While he's working one Monday morning his phone rings. The man's voice says they have kidnapped his wife Holly. They will kill her if he doesn't get $2 million for them. If he thinks they're not on the level, they stage a demonstration that shocks him.

Of course he isn't supposed to tell the police. He can only lay his hands on around $13,000 - nowhere near enough. What do these people want him to do? What is he supposed to rob? He goes home to chaos. When they call him back, they explain they left the house with the appearance that Mitch himself killed Holly. If he doesn't do what they say, when she is found dead he will be the primary suspect. Mitch has never considered himself special or brave, but now he has to be both if he wants to save Holly.

Listen? Did you hear that sound? It was me getting sucked right into this novel by Dean Koontz. I was wary when I started The Husband. When I think of Koontz I tend to think "supernatural" and "near horror". The Husband is a fast-paced suspense thriller. There is no supernatural elements, just the frightening premise that the most innocuous of people can find themselves in unreal scary circumstances. Mitch and Holly happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The novel seems unreal - but that doesn't make it any less suspenseful. It kept me pulled in all the way through. The end fell flat, in my opinion. Once Mitch gets Holly back, the story just stops. There is more written but has lost all of the momentum that carries the rest of the novel. Don't let that stop you, though. If you like good suspense, you want to read The Husband. Meanwhile, I need to go back and find Koontz' other non-supernatural novels.

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Notice: Explicit violence

Provided for review