Review: Hideaway

Hideaway by Dean Koontz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There was a time when I read nothing but Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Then, for a time, I explored other horror/supernatural thriller/spec fic writers, to broaden my palate. When I returned to King, re-reading some old favorites and reading his newer offerings, I was pleasantly surprised to find I loved his work as much as I remember loving it.

Though I enjoyed HIDEAWAY, it hasn't quite been the same experience re-reading Koontz (except for his novella STRANGE HIGHWAYS, I love that one). One thing I notice now that I didn't then is that Koontz can't seem to stop himself from editorializing along the way, intruding as a narrator a bit too much. The values of an author will always inevitably influence their work. But I don't necessarily want the author to beat me over the head with their values with an intruding narrator. He didn't do it as much in this one, but I noticed it a lot more, after not reading Koontz for a long time.

Plus, his child protagonists are always unfailingly witty, well-read and literate, sarcastic but with hearts of gold inside. It's a formula, and it didn't bother me too much here, but only because I haven't read much Koontz in awhile. King's child protagonists may still be "good" but they have a grittier reality to them.

On the plus side, I did appreciate that Koontz had Hatch be pretty straightforward with is wife about his visions, and that she was in the fight with him right from the start. I always hate it when authors - for the sake of false tension - have couples in an otherwise healthy relationship just start to randomly hide things from each other. That CAN be a useful element of characterization, but mostly, it comes off as fake. Koontz didn't misstep here, and I enjoyed it more because of it.

And of course, (for obvious reasons) I have no issues with the amount of faith which ends up in Koontz's characters. Actually, if he just contented himself with letting his characters be moral vehicles, I'd probably still be a more avid fan, and since this is a earlier novel, his Narrator doesn't intrude as much as it does in his later works.

I will say I don't think I needed the "and this is how everyone ended up" conclusion. We could've easily ended with the end of the plot's action itself. Other than that, this stands up as reflective of Koontz's stronger, earlier work.

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