Midnight

Some strange deaths draw Tessa Lockland and Sam Booker to Moonlight Cove, where they team up with natives Chrissie Foster and Harry Talbot to combat the evil that threatens the community

The latest tersely titled thriller by Koontz ( Strangers ; Lightning , etc.) displays the author's abilities at full throttle. A horror story with science fiction underpinnings, it concerns a brilliant, insane inventor, Theodore Shaddack, who uses the sleepy California town of Moonlight Cove as an outsize lab for a bizarre experiment that ultimately turns the community into a charnel house. He has devised a solution of microchips which, when injected into the (usually unwilling) subject, endows them with immense mental powers over their own bodies, leaving them, however, emotionally lobotomized. As a result, almost all the "New People" regress to animal form, to experience again primal sensationsand in animal form, they kill. The story is told from the points of view of four people who perceive that something horrible is happening in Moonlight Cove, and that if they do not act fast, it will happen to them. It is also related from the point of view of Sheriff Loman Watkins, himself a "New Person," but who retains enough moral sense to be disturbed by what is happening around him and in him. Despite some paper-thin characterizations and a predilection for the maudlin, Koontz's sense of pace and the dramatic are sure, and there are a number of memorable moments. This one should hit the bestseller list at a run. 200,000 first printing, $150,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild selection.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Four people are the last hope of Moonlight Cove, because one by one the rest of the citizens are changinginto boogymen, werewolves, mythical creatures, or something entirely new. They are the New People, willing victims of a seductive experiment in chemically induced evolution. They can transform their bodies at will and eliminate unproductive emotions, like grief and compassion. In fact, the only instinct left to the New People is self-preservation, and their only emotion is fear. And they want the rest of humanity to join them. Popular author Koontz ( Watchers , Lighting ) has again delivered a gripping horror thriller with well-drawn characters and plenty of suspense. Literary Guild selection. A.M.B. Amantia, Population Crisis Committee Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.