The Eyes of Darkness is about a mother who lost her son in a bus accident. His body was supposedly so badly damaged that the medical professionals encouraged her and her husband to not even look at it. Since they took the advice of these medical professions, they never saw their sonโs dead body, not even to say goodbye to him.
The opening paragraph of the book sets the stage for a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat: At six minutes past midnight, Tuesday morning, on the way home from a late rehearsal of her new stage show, Tina Evans saw her son, Danny, in a strangerโs car. But Danny had been dead for more than a year.
Tina begins finding strange writings on the chalkboard in her dead sonโs room: IโM NOT DEAD. She is convinced her ex is behind these messages. But sheโs also having disturbing dreams.
Now dating someone, she confides in him about the messages and the dreams. He convinces her that it would be a great idea to have Dannyโs body exhumed so that she can finally see for real that he is no longer in this world. When her boyfriend, Elliot, brings this up with one of his friends who is a judge, all hell breaks loose; Tina and Elliot are now on the run for their lives, going from glitzy Las Vegas deep into the High Sierras, where they uncover a secret more horrible than they could ever imagine.
Was she imagining things? Did she unknowingly write those messages in Dannyโs room herself? I mean, his room was still the same as it was the day he died.
Then things begin to happen around Tina while she and Elliot are on the run. A jukebox in a small diner they are eating in ets stuck on the words not dead in a song. Not only is the jukebox stuck there, but the words keep growing louder and louder and louder.
Iโm sure I have a paperback copy of this book is somewhere in the collection of books that I donโt have room for on my shelves, but I didnโt want to take the time to go through all the boxes; I ended up buying a Kindle copy of it to read again because of what is going on in the world right now with COVID-19. The story is great, so great that I read this book in only two days. When I became involved with the trauma Tina was going through, I felt for her, and I wanted her to find out what happened to her son. I wanted her to find him alive and to be reunited with him.
Could author Dean Koontz have looked into his writerโs crystal ball and seen that in the future a biological weapon in the form of a virus from Wuhan, China, would be unleashed on an unsuspecting world? The virus in this book is not COVID-19. The fictional virus has a 100% fatality rate, and it happens fast, while more people recover from COVID-19 than die from it.
Did he find while doing some research that a lab existed there and thought that a virus being released into the world from that place would make a great story?
If you would like your own copy of this unputdownable book to read, I’ve provided an Amazon link below.
Amazon Link: The Eyes of Darkness
Favorite Sentences:
Meanwhile, the sky grew darker by the second; massive storm clouds, like the clenched fists of celestial giants, squeezed the last light out of the day.
She believed in death and taxes, in the inevitability of slot-machine jackpots, in all-you-can-eat buffets for $5.95 per person, in the Lord God Almighty, in the truth of alien abductions and Big Foot, but she didnโt believe in ghosts.
A disgusting cluster of maggots clung to the manโs left cheek and to the corner of his eye, feeding off him.
On windy days the dust was as thick as fog, and it pushed its dirty little cat feet under doors, around windows, and through attic vents.
Flickr
New Words Learned:
baccarat โ a gambling card game in which players hold two- or three-card hands, the winning hand being that giving the highest remainder when its face value is divided by ten
keno โ a game of chance similar to lotto, based on the drawing of numbers that must correspond with selected numbers on cards
lagniappe โ something given as a bonus or extra gift
melaleucas โ an Australian shrub or tree that bears spikes of bottlebrushlike flowers. Some kinds are a source of timber or medicinal oil.
penurious โ 1. extremely poor; poverty-stricken
2. parsimonious; mean
porte cochere โ a covered entrance large enough for vehicles to pass through, typically opening into a courtyard
About the Author:
Dean Koontz, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Elsa, and the enduring spirits of their goldens, Trixie and Anna.
