Дин Кунц - Ricochet Joe

Closing the gate behind her, she considered the windows, from which the draperies had been drawn aside and the blinds raised to admit as much of the day’s dreary light as possible. She could see no one gazing out at the lake—or on the watch for her.

Committed now, she followed the pickets around the side of the house. As the clouds lowered and the flag rustled in a breeze that smelled faintly of either the rain to come or the waters of the lake, she climbed the porch steps and rang the bell.

A moment later, a slim, attractive, fiftyish woman opened the door. She wore jeans, a sweater, and a knee-length apron decorated with needlepoint strawberries.

“Mrs. Lambert?” Jane asked.

“Yes?”

“We have a bond that I hope I can call upon.”

Gwyneth Lambert raised a half smile and her eyebrows.

Jane said, “We both married Marines.”

“That’s a bond, all right. How can I help you?”

“We’re also both widows. And I believe we have the same people to blame for that.”

Dean Koontz is the author of more than a dozen New York Times #1 bestsellers. His books have sold over five hundred million copies worldwide, a figure that increases by more than seventeen million copies per year, and his work is published in thirty-eight languages. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania and lives with his wife, Gerda, and their dog, Elsa, in Southern California

American oddball illustrator and designer Oliver Barrett grew up in Ohio on a steady diet of science fiction, role-playing games, and below-average athletics. He cut his teeth working as an art director at advertising and branding agencies before setting off on his own to make his mark on the world. This background set the stage for a career of clever concepts, frenetic line work, and engaging imagery that’s sought after by the Nikes, Amazons, and Netflixes of the globe, to name a few. He can also deadlift almost four hundred pounds.

Ashley Bell

The City

Innocence

77 Shadow Street

What the Night Knows

Breathless

Relentless

Your Heart Belongs to Me

The Darkest Evening of the Year

The Good Guy

The Husband

Velocity

Life Expectancy

The Taking

The Face

By the Light of the Moon

One Door Away from Heaven

From the Corner of His Eye

False Memory

Seize the Night

Fear Nothing

Mr. Murder

Dragon Tears

Hideaway

Cold Fire

The Bad Place

Midnight

Lightning

Watchers

Strangers

Twilight Eyes

Darkfall

Phantoms

Whispers

The Mask

The Vision

The Face of Fear

Night Chills

Shattered

The Voice of the Night

The Servants of Twilight

The House of Thunder

The Key to Midnight

The Eyes of Darkness

Shadowfires

Winter Moon

The Door to December

Dark Rivers of the Heart

Icebound

Strange Highways

Intensity

Sole Survivor

Ticktock

The Funhouse

Demon Seed

Odd Thomas

Odd Thomas

Forever Odd

Brother Odd

Odd Hours

Odd Interlude

Odd Apocalypse

Deeply Odd

Saint Odd

Frankenstein

Prodigal Son

City of Night

Dead and Alive

Lost Souls

The Dead Town

Nonfiction

A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog Named Trixie

“Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler.”

“Dean Koontz writes page-turners, middle-of-the-night-sneak-up-behind-you suspense thrillers. He touches our hearts and tingles our spines.”

“A modern Swift… a master satirist.”

“Koontz has a knack for making the bizarre and uncanny seem as commonplace as a sunrise. BOTTOM LINE: the Dean of Suspense.”

“If Stephen King is the Rolling Stones of novels, Koontz is the Beatles.”

“A superb plotter and wordsmith. He chronicles the hopes and fears of our time in broad strokes and fine detail, using popular fiction to explore the human condition [and] demonstrating that the real horror of life is found not in monsters, but within the human psyche.”

“Far more than a genre writer. Characters and the search for meaning, exquisitely crafted, are the soul of his work. This is why his novels will be read long after the ghosts and monsters of most genre writers have been consigned to the attic. One of the master storytellers of this or any age.”

“Dean Koontz almost occupies a genre of his own. He is a master at building suspense and holding the reader spellbound.”

“Demanding much of itself, Koontz’s style bleaches out clichés while showing a genius for details. He leaves his competitors buried in the dust.”

“Koontz has always had near-Dickensian powers of description, and an ability to yank us from one page to the next that few novelists can match.”

“Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose.”

“Koontz raises intriguing questions about life, death, evil, and faith that are worthy of C. S. Lewis.”

“If there’s an element of menacing chaos in Koontz’s body of work, there’s also another common thread: Good people, fighting back, can make a difference… Koontz knows how to set hooks throughout his novels and has a knack for foreshadowing without giving away the plot store.”

“Perhaps more than any other author, Koontz writes fiction perfectly suited to the mood of America: novels that acknowledge the reality and tenacity of evil but also the power of good; that celebrate the common man and woman; that at their best entertain vastly as they uplift.”

“Koontz’s astonishing novel[s] show him making moral fable[s] out of dark fantasy materials… object lesson[s] in the unfashionable virtues of fortitude, prudence, and a faith far firmer than with-it moderns generally tolerate… Loaded with dialogue the likes of which haven’t been rampant since the 1930s heyday of screwball comedy… Richly sympathetic [characters]… emotionally powerful and thought-provoking.”

“Koontz is a master of melding the supernatural with the commonplace. [His] writing crackles with dry, tongue-in-cheek wit.”

“Dean Koontz straddles the genres… he provides a giddy ride.”

“Classic Koontz features a distinctive narrative that verges on the wise-crackingly facetious… He is also a dab hand at tying in a wacky love story… an acquired taste, but one acquired by millions.”

“Koontz skillfully blends elements… of romance, horror, fantasy, mystery, suspense, thriller, and detective fiction… All of Koontz’s novels are about how to live and his people are the main event. You can believe them. You can believe in them… He can be wickedly satirical and funny… he has a good deal of faith—like Dickens and Chekhov—in individuals.”