Dark Rivers of the Heart (First Edition)

Two secretive, lonely people--a man and a woman--desperately flee a clandestine, illegal agency with a hidden fascist agenda, pursued by a vicious, insidiously evil operative with full access to the vast resources of the government. 500,000 first printing. $500,000 ad/promo. Lit Guild Main. Tour.

It's just another chase thriller, and Koontz's style (so to speak) hasn't improved, but this is his most interesting opus in a long while. That's because it's afire with Koontz's indignation over the heavy-handed manners of federal law enforcement in crushing the Branch Davidians, slaughtering the family of hapless white separatist Randy Weaver in 1992, and seizing the assets--all of them--of those merely associated, whether rightly or wrongly, with illegal drug transactions. Koontz thinks federal cops are out of control, and he paints a picture--colorless and two-dimensional, to be sure--of a U.S. only a few weeks in the future in which a secret agency is bent on becoming an invisible government in the service of a moralistic, powermongering, wealthy bureaucrat who did not hesitate in killing his own son when the young man threatened his clandestine empire-building. The actual protagonists here are a cop with a past and the bureaucrat's son's widow, both of whom are physically and technologically intrepid. Their antagonists are a complementary pair: the secret agency's principal hit man and a brainy blond bombshell who secretly monitors Las Vegas for the agency. Intriguingly, Koontz's neofascist villains are not radical right-wingers but "compassionate" liberals. The hit man, for instance, moonlights at helping the "suffering"--a paraplegic and his wife, an upper-middle-class business couple whose enterprises have foundered in a recession--by putting them out of their misery. With lead. This bland-looking sociopath also spouts environmental awareness, patronizes New Age healers and mystics, and memorably receives spiritual restoration from a TV image of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Expect this yarn to be denounced as right-wing alarmist trash by some, hailed as a libertarian warning by others, and, like virtually everything Koontz writes, read by millions. Ray Olson

Spencer Grant is on the run from a nameless, violent government agency. His goal is to keep away from his pursuers long enough to find the woman he met the night before, who appears to be their real target. Spencer has no idea why they want to kill Valerie Keene, but his brief acquaintance with her has convinced him that the killers have no good reason for wanting her dead. With his game but fearful dog, Rocky, Spencer leads the killers on a frustrating chase. By the end of the story, Spencer must confront his own personal demons as well as the bizarre sociopathic agent leading the hunt. The government's activities-especially the incredible surveillance techniques that Koontz, in an afterword, claims are currently being used-help create an atmosphere of intense paranoia and fear. This superb suspense novel will surely delight the author's many fans.
--A.M.B. Amantia, Population Action International, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.