• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2005 May #1
  Billy Wiles tends bar in a tavern in his small California hometown, from which he has never moved despite the horrific night when he became an orphan at 14 and its equally horrific aftermath. Some 15 years later, he published a well-received book of stories and met Barbara. They were about to be married when botulism in canned vichyssoise put her in a coma, and Billy more or less on hold, living on the hope that she will revive some day. Some five years further on, Billy finds, under the windshield wiper of his car, a note offering him a hideous decision. If he doesn't go to the police, "a lovely blond schoolteacher" will be killed; if he does, "an elderly woman" will be murdered. Billy doesn't exactly go the police. He shows the note to a cop who is probably his only real friend and who seconds his conjecture that the note is just an exceedingly tasteless prank. Of course, it isn't, and for the rest of an exceedingly tightly wound thriller stubbornly focused on him, Billy struggles to discover the identity of the soon-serial killer, who plants evidence incriminating Billy on his (her? their?) victims. Eventually and all too soon, Barbara is threatened, and Billy's subsequent suicide predicted, in the murderer's ostensibly final note. Not as moving as Odd Thomas (2003), as creepy as The Taking(2004), as darkly funny as Life Expectancy (2004), or as thought-provoking as any of them, Velocity is, however, more suspenseful and more grueling--genuinely terrific. ((Reviewed May 1, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

When he was a senior in college, Dean Koontz won an Atlantic Monthly fiction competition. He has been writing ever since. His books are published in 38 languages; worldwide sales are over 300 million copies.

Ten of his novels have risen to number one on the New York Times hardcover best-seller list (The Husband, One Door Away From Heaven, From The Corner Of His Eye, Midnight, Cold Fire, Hideaway, Dragon Tears, The Bad Place, Intensity, and Sole Survivor). Thirteen of his books have risen to the number one position in paperback.

Several of his books have been adapted into feature films and TV miniseries, including the highly rated “Intensity” on the Fox Network. The Husband is currently in development as a major motion picture by Focus Features/Random House Films.

The New York Times has called his writing "psychologically complex, masterly and satisfying." The New Orleans Times-Picayune said Koontz is "lyrical without ever being naive or romantic. [He creates] a grotesque world, much like that of Flannery O'Connor or Walker Percy ... scary, worthwhile reading." The London Times called him "a literary juggler," and Publishers Weekly recently stated in a starred review that Koontz "gives readers bright hope in a dark world. He is a true original."

Dean Koontz was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Shippensburg State College (now Shippensburg University), and his first job after graduation was with the Appalachian Poverty Program, where he was expected to counsel and tutor underprivileged children on a one-to-one basis. His first day on the job, he discovered that the previous occupier of his position had been beaten up by the very kids he had been trying to help and had landed in the hospital for several weeks. The following year was filled with challenge but also tension, and Koontz was more highly motivated than ever to build a career as a writer. He wrote nights and weekends, which he continued to do after leaving the poverty program and going to work as an English teacher in a suburban school district outside Harrisburg. After he had been a year and a half in that position, his wife, Gerda, made him an offer he couldn't refuse: "I'll support you for five years," she said, "and if you can't make it as a writer in that time, you'll never make it." By the end of those five years, Gerda had quit her job to run the business end of her husband's writing career. Dean and Gerda Koontz live in southern California with their golden retriever, Trixie, who herself has written two successful books—Life Is Good and Christmas Is Good.


From the Paperback edition.