One of the great unexpected pleasures from doing this work has been the development of Secondhand Smokette’s and my close friendship with the novelist Dean Koontz and his wife Gerda—not to mention their late Golden Retriever, Trixie, a truly remarkable dog, and their beloved and very sweet new Golden, Anna. (For those who are interested in how our friendship came about, hit this link.)
A great perk of being a FOD, is receiving advance copies of his novels. I read his just released book, What the Night Knows, a few months ago, and it still lingers. It is a really terrific ghost story—and more. As he always does, Dean explores the differences between good and evil, showing how and why some people choose and relish evil, while others fight it to the end. But he also approaches the subject from another angle. I won’t give away any of the plot to say that a very interesting subtext here is that even the most flawed people can still rise to the occasion—if at a sometimes very great personal cost. In other words, none of us is beyond redemption. But then, none of us is immune from damnation, either. We choose.
Oh, and as you lose sleep from the shivers, you might want to take a close look at your own character flaws. They can be entry ways to unwanted…guests.
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