From the Corner of His Eye - Softcover

Dean-koontz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747270740 ISBN 13: 9780747270744

Publisher: Headline Feature, 2000

Synopsis

Some men are not serial killers--they just keep finding reasons, which seem good to them at the time, for a series of murders; Junior, the villain of Dean Koontz's genuinely strange dark comedy of misunderstanding and awful death From the Corner of his Eye suffers from the delusion that he is the favoured child of destiny, and that all he has to do is tinker with reality one more time, kill one more person. He keeps guessing wrong--he thinks that he has to fnid a child called Bartholomew, who is his nemesis; we get to know Bartholomew, a prodigy who loses his eyes to cancer as a child, but can walk between raindrops. Bartholomew is only one of the good people whom Junior's crimes bring together--for a book with as much mayhem as this one contains, it is one which has a surprising confidence in the provident ability of the universe to bring the delightful out of the horrible, the wonderful out of the disgusting. Dean Koontz has always been one of the more interesting writers to operate in that strange area where sf, horror and the thriller blend and merge; here he further blends and mingles tragedy and comedy, the sacred and the profane.

About this title

Review:

Horrormeister Koontz looks heavenward for inspiration in his newest suspense thriller, which is chock-full of signs, portents, angels, and one somewhat second-rate devil, a murky and undercharacterized guy named Junior Cain who throws his beloved wife off a fire tower on an Oregon mountain and spends the rest of the novel waiting for the retribution that will surely come. But not before a series of tragedies ensues that convince Junior that someone or something named Bartholomew is out to exact vengeance for that crime and the series of other murders that follow.

Bartholomew's own troubles begin with his birth, which transpires moments after his father is killed in a traffic accident as he is taking his wife to the hospital, and continue with the loss of his eyes at the tender age of 3. Young Bartholomew has visionary gifts, though to his mother, a nice lady who's renowned for her pie-making abilities as well as her sweetly innocent nature, he's just a particularly smart kid who can read and write before his second birthday. Eventually, Bartholomew regains his sight, Junior Cain gets his comeuppance, and fate conspires to bring love into the Pie Lady's life, reward the faithful, and put a happy ending on this genre-bending tale. Koontz will no doubt rocket right to the top of the bestseller list with this inventive, if somewhat slower-paced, read. --Jane Adams

From the Inside Flap:

Twelve cassettes, 21 hrs.
Read by Stephen Lang

Bartholomew Lampion is born in Bright Beach, California, on a day of tragedy and terror, when the lives of everyone in his family are changed forever. Remarkable events accompany his birth, and everyone agrees that his unusual eyes are the most beautiful they have ever seen.

On this same day, a thousand miles away, a ruthless man learns he has a mortal enemy named Bartholomew. He doesn't know who Bartholomew is, but he embarks on a search that will become the purpose of his life. If ever he finds the right Bartholomew, he will deal mercilessly with him.

And in San Francisco a girl is born, the result of a violent rape. Her survival is miraculous, and her destiny is mysteriously linked to the fates of Barty and the man who stalks him.

At the age ot three, Barty Lampion is blinded when surgeons reluctantly remove his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer. As the growing boy copes with his blindness and proves to be a prodigy, his mother, an exceptional woman, counsels him that all things happen for a reason, that there is meaning even in his suffering, and that he will affect the lives of people yet unknown to him in ways startling and profound.

At thirteen, Bartholomew regains his sight. How he regains it, why he regains it, and what happens as his amazing life unfolds results in a breathtaking journey of courage, heart-stopping suspense, and high adventure. His mother once told him that every person's life has an effect on every other's, in often unknowable ways, and Barty's eventful life indeed entwines with others in ways that will astonish and move everyone who reads his story.

People magazine has said that Dean Koontz has the "power to scare the daylights out of us." In this, perhaps the most thrilling, suspenseful, and emotionally powerful work of his critically acclaimed career, Koontz does that and far more. He has created a compulsive page-turner that will have you at the edge of your seat, a narrative tour-de-force that will change the way you yourself look at the world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Headline Feature
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0747270740
• ISBN 13: 9780747270744
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 408