You awake with a start from some hideous nightmare but realise it is not over. You can hear the whispering of evil beings and suddenly realise that they are all around you, touching you, crawling over your skin, probing your eyes, your mouth, your ears, looking for a way into your body.

This is a nightly occurrence for Bruno Frye, a wealthy and respected man, a vintner in the Napa Valley. However, is Bruno Frye all he seems?

THE STORY

Hilary Thomas, a scriptwriter, is attacked in her own home by a man who tries to rape and kill her. She recognises him from a recent trip to the Napa Valley. He is the millionaire, Bruno Frye. The police phone Frye's home, which is hundreds of miles away and find Frye there. It is clear that Thomas has lied.

Just hours after the police leave her house, Thomas is again attacked by a murderous intruder. Once again it is Frye but this time she delivers a fatal blow in self-defence and frye runs out of the house, destined to die alone in a car park. Did the police lie to cover for the millionaire? Who answered the phone at the Frye residence and was taken for being Frye himself?

Oscar Wilde might have commented that to be attacked once is misfortune, twice carelessness, but what would he have thought about the third time? And what would he have said about the fact that the accused attacker was already dead? For this is what thomas claims when she is assaulted for a third time by Frye, whom she has killed herself only days earlier. Once again Thomas finds herself doubted by the police but one man, detective Tony Clemenza, believes her and is determined to help her solve the mystery and get her out of danger.

As the two begin to investigate, the case that unravels before them is complex and confusing involving psychosis, child abuse, satanism and murder.

CHARACTERISATION

Hilary Thomas is our heroine and when she is first attacked Koontz has tried to give us an insight into her background in order to enable us to empathise with her and feel her terror and pain. However, the picture he paints of her childhood is just one of a broken family with some physical abuse. We have no other clues as to her personality or her motivations in life. I do not feel that this is enough for us to be able to make an assessment of her and enable us to take her side when she is attacked. However, this could be an intentional ruse by Koontz, so that we find ourselves in the same predicament as the police; faced by a seemingly intelligent woman who is telling a wild story, which is extremely hard to believe. If this is his intention it works extremely well but I feel that it is to the detriment of the reader's relationship with the heroine. As the novel continues we do get to know and like her better but the damage to a certain extent is already done and we can never feel as close an affinity with her as is necessary for a reader and fictional heroine.

Tony Clemenza, who is our hero, is touched upon very lightly by the author. We are given little knowledge of his past and are only enlightened as to his personality in that he likes to paint. With such little information given to us it takes a much longer period of time for us to grow to like and respect him than could have been achieved by some further knowledge bestowed by Koontz. Inversely and utterly illogically Koontz goes into enormous detail in recreating the past of Clemenza's police partner, Frank Howard. Howard plays a relatively small part in the book and so why Koontz deemed it necessary to go to the lengths he does to explain his motivations and establish a rapport between him and the reader is a mystery.

The most interesting character in the novel is, of course, that of Bruno Frye. He is obviously fascinating as how could a respected businessman really be a seemingly psychotic rapist and murderer? How could he hide such deep-rooted anger and violent temperament beneath a calm efficient businesslike exterior? What could possibly motivate him to commit such a crime? How could he, from such a privileged background, have developed such unnatural urges? I will not answer any of these questions for you, as it would spoil the novel but I will say that Koontz succeeds completely in filling out the bones of the Frye persona. We grow to know and understand him more than any other character in the book and, despite his hideous acts of rape and murder we cannot help but feel immense pity for him.

PACE

Although the book gets of to an action packed start with the assault on Thomas it is then followed by quite a lull and some slow paced scenes involving Clemenza and Howard. A lot of these earlier chapters could easily have been omitted without compromising the plot or the pattern of characterisation. The only character who is fleshed out during this time is Howard and he is of little consequence to the story.

However, this initial slowness if more than made up for in the second half of the book. About two thirds of the way through the plot begins to become very exciting. We begin to be given clues as to the explanations behind the attacks on Thomas and as to the motivations of Frye. It becomes clear that Thomas is still in intense and immediate danger and the suspense is heightened considerably.

This tension remains unabated until the end of the novel. From this moment it is hard to put the book down as you are desperate to find out more about the mysterious occurrences and to see whether our hero and heroine can survive the dangers in which they find themselves.

REALISM

Although Koontz begins to paint a picture of possible involvement in demonism and the occult, of superhuman acts and impossible reincarnation and possession, it is all explained and rationalised by the end of the novel.

In this respect Koontz is far superior to many of Stephen Kings novels. While it is possible to write a supernatural tale in which victims are murdered by ghosts or demons or vampires, the book can never really grip us with the same fears and terrors as a tale of a human killer. After all, as we turn off the light at night we know that there are no vampires waiting to suck our blood but it is possible that a human could break into our house and assault us.

Koontz is able to create an extremely interesting storyline, as interesting as any supernatural tale could be, and yet he has the imagination to give plausible and natural explanations for events when it seems as if there could be none. As a result the novel benefits from the combination of exciting and nail-biting plot and the sharp terror or real possibility.

HE DOES IT AGAIN

Over all I would recommend the book. Although it started slowly and I began to think I would be disappointed, as the action and plot picked up and became more complex I was gripped and my disappointment turned to voracity for further reading material.

It is an exciting read that will have you guessing and worrying until the very end.