Hideaway - Dean Koontz

Advantages: Totally compelling read, no 'filler' content
Disadvantages: Puts some of Koontz's other novels to shame

...Dean Koontz at his best. Hideaway is a fantastically descriptive novel that succeeds in doing what I feel good writing should, it fills your mind with images, totally absorbs you, takes you away from the boundaries of normality and introduces you to a world that is beyond the average imagination, frighteningly surreal. You’re given little tasters of the plot developing as it twists and turns throughout the book but never too much at a time. ...
...yet to encounter Koontz, then Hideaway is a great introduction to his writing. Die-hard fan or casual reader, I’d be surprised if you are left anything less than completely taken by this book. You can buy Hideaway online from whsmith.co.uk, or amazon.co.uk for the normal price of £6.99 although it’s currently on sale at both sites for £5.59 (exc p&p). Publisher: Headline Bk. Pub. Binding: Paperback Published: 17 December 1992 ISBN: 0747238154 ... Read review

Advantages: Good plot, very likeable characters and very scary villain
Disadvantages: Quick to read, like most of Koontz' stuff

Hideaway starts with a terrible accident. Lindsay and Hatch are propelled into a freezing river by a druck truck driver. Hatch dies, but by a brilliant doctor using a miraclulous medial technique, is brought back from death. But did he return alone? There is a series of increasingly gruesome murders, and Hatch starts to experience terible visions, as if he is looking through the killers eyes... What is the connection between Hatch and the killer? ... Read review

Advantages: A superb book.
Disadvantages: The film - ignore it.

...film –it is awful. Hideaway is a masterpiece of modern occult style lore - demons and technology, medicine and fate. Koonz uses established techniques to keep the reader with the book once they’ve opened it; a tragic and horrific crash and then he very quickly slides comfortably into his wonderful writing elegance that makes it all but impossible to put the book back down. You will be finished reading in no time and when you do put the book down ...
...for one; there is some killer on the loose and for two this cold-blooded murderer seems to have some sort of connection to the hero. The killer is a strong character, in the book he makes a superb anti-hero. Entire chapters are devoted to following his movements and not one of them is a waste of space. ... Read review

After the near-death-experiment, a hero finds out he has a psychic connection with the sadistic young serial killer, Satan-worshipping Vassago, who tries to find him and his family. Constant and somewhat sleazy misuse of the medical word "psychotic" aside (dictionary, Dean, dictionary!), Koontz simply cannot make his story and characters interesting or entertaining.