That's all I could think last night when I finally finished reading this book, Dean Koontz latest.
This story is based on the premise of the Apostle Bartholomew. He is not one of the more well-known of Jesus' apostles, but that is what makes his story more compelling. You see, we never know how our lives affect one another and intertwine together.
We've seen the premise before, most notably in the movie It's A Wonderful Lifeand Koontz touches on it briefly in his previous book Lightning. Here we see how on one day a woman is murdered and two children are born whose futures are intertwined with the murderer.
As usual, Koontz strict attention to every detail helps us feel as if we are their, walking along, watching every scene as it takes place. The depiction of the killer's apartment, as well as the detail in the events that lead up to each murder, keep you hanging on, wanting to read just one more page when it is already past midnight.
We have seen some of these characters before, in other books: the crazy murdered who is wealthy, cunning and powerful. On the other side are the people who are devoutly good and who suffer tremendous loss and burdens in their lives only to come out stronger than before. If there is one weakness in Koontz writing it is the relying on these same types of characters again and again. However, each one is different in their own distinct way, and his writing is so amazing that I still want to keep reading.
Barty is a young prodigy, being raised by his widowed mother and two uncles who are fixated on train crashes and natural disasters. Angel is born the product of a rape, and is raised by her aunt after her mother dies in childbirth. Enoch Cain Jr. is a crazy man who thinks every woman in the world worships the ground he walks on, and becomes fixated on "Bartholomew". He misunderstands who Bartholomew is, and becomes fixated on him as the cause of everything wrong with his life.
The difference in this book is how Koontz manages to bring in religion to intertwine with quantum physics. How many branches are there in our lives? How many times do we make decisions and say "What if I had done something else instead?" How many different possibilities are there in someone's life? Koontz does a wonderful job bringing everything together. Barty tells his mother of worlds that are different from the life he has here; worlds he can feel.
Every character in this had a purpose, no matter how small. Halfway through, it seems disjointed, as if the reader is all over the place. A short time later, it pulls together and we see how everyone's lives intersect.
You won't be able to put it down!
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