The Mystery Starts Here

I picked up this book at the library mainly because it was about a woman who helps to rescue Golden retrievers. The story held my interest, but was hard to read in part because, unfortunately, too many dogs are abused in puppy mills and Koontz goes into detail about them, yuck. At one point, when he talked about putting a dog to sleep, I wept. I’ve had to do it too often. There was a long thread about the abuse of a disabled child which was stomach turning - very tough. Well, Koontz IS a horror writer.

I enjoyed "Darkest Evening" for the most part. It was interesting to see how Koontz wove all the disparate threads together towards the end. However, the ending didn’t work for me - or for many people who reviewed the book on amazon.com. It seemed like Koontz got to a certain point, looked at his watch and said, "Boogers, I’ve got to wrap this up!", and he did.

There’s a big element of woo-woo in this book, so be prepared. In spite of the dark element of this novel, there are some very funny, laugh-out-loud lines in the book. I loved reading about the Goldens even though I’m a Labrador lover. I’ve lived with dogs long enough to know that they each have their own unique personalities.

A lot of Koontz’ books are very long - partly I think because he just LOVES to describe! He’s good at it but often it’s just too much - it makes my teeth hurt. This book had lots of lush description, sometime so much that I got lost and had to go back to see what was happening to the people! Unlike some of his longer tomes this one is a more normal length at 354 pages. All in all I guess I’d have to say I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it but I finished the book and that’s something I don’t always do!

Tags: book threads, dark story, Dean Koontz, golden retrievers

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