Mr. Murder

Mystery writer Marty Stillwater finds his life and family threatened by a psychotic killer professing to be the real Marty Stillwater, who embarks on a campaign to eliminate Marty and claim his family. Lit Guild & Doubleday Main. Mystery Guild Alt.

The formula Koontz ( The Bad Place ) uses here is a familiar one: an overpowering evil stalks an innocent family that remains unaware of the menace until isolated from all help and forced to run for their lives. But enhanced by Koontz's lean prose and rich characterization, this fearsome tale summons up new frissons of horror. Marty Stillwater's second horror novel is bestseller-bound; he's the subject of a People magazine feature article; and his wife, Paige, and their two young daughters complete the perfect family. Then he begins having blackouts and paralyzing panic attacks that lead him to hide guns around the house. The weapons prove handy when an armed stranger--Marty's Doppelganger --breaks into the house to kill him and reclaim the life, family and destiny that he swears Marty stole. A fierce battle leaves the stranger dead but when Paige and the police arrive, the body is gone. Unable to trust the cops, the family runs for the hills to try to evade the seemingly indestructible "Other." Meanwhile, sinister agents are desperately tracking The Other for their own less-than-ethical ends. Playing on every emotion and keeping the story racing along, Koontz masterfully escalates the tension. He closes the narrative with the most ingenious twist ending of his career. Literary Guild & Doubleday Book Club main selection; Mystery Guild alternate selection.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Koontz's earliest thrillers (Night Chills, etc.) were stripped-down vehicles designed for speed and suspense, nothing more. In its terrific visceral energy, this latest, with the author's simplest plot in years--one long chase involving a Frankenstein-like monster, his guardians, and his victims--harkens back to those early affairs; but Koontz is a literary phenomenon now and feels free to load his writing with all sorts of sermons about modern-day woes. The title itself is polemical: ``Mr. Murder'' is the hated sobriquet that People magazine gives to Marty Stillwater, a rising mystery writer who might as well be called Dean Koontz for his California address, stable family life, and strong opinions about the nobility of storytelling and the corruption of American society. At first, Koontz seems to be aping Stephen King here, not just for his put-upon writer-hero but also for the malevolent, perhaps not quite human, twin of Marty's who blows into town, shades of The Dark Half. Koontz is his own writer, however, and it's soon clear that Alfie is no figment made flesh but a wonderfully creepy organic killing machine with a surprising origin and astounding recuperative powers (fueled by Slim Jims and Big Macs) who wants only to take over Marty's life--his wife, daughters, and writing career--and will squash him to do it. Also, Alfie's moral code comes from films he's seen--including porno films in which severe discipline alone brings females into line. Meanwhile, the top-secret federal agents in charge of Alfie--as well as of the experiment that produced him--are desperately hunting their charge, who's gone AWOL and beserk.... Blood pours; children shriek; Alfie makes like a werewolf on steroids while Marty acts like a lion--and Koontz nails the reader to the page once again, despite the soapboxing. (Literary Guild Dual Selection for December) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.