The Husband

The Husband by Dean Koontz

Category: Suspense Grade: A-

OK, analogy time. Eating and reading, to me, are a lot alike. There aren't too many things in the world better than good piece of filet, cooked perfectly. If you've been following these reviews, you know that, the last book I read, Parting the Waters, was that caliber to me.

However, no matter how much you appreciate sitting down to the best possible food, sometimes you just really, really feel like a Big Mac! Dean Koontz, for those of you who have never tried him, is one of those authors who has become the MacDonalds of the literary world. All of his books are fast, easy and satisfying, even if they make you feel a little guilty about enjoying them so much.

First, the book goes down really easy. Short sentences, unchallenging vocabulary, lots of dialog. When you look at a page of a Koontz book, you see mostly white space. The time to read this book is measured in hours, not days.

Second, the book, of course, has to have meat - not much, but enough so that you've got something to bite in to. In this case, the meat is an interesting plot. The book begins when a fairly ordinary gardner gets a call on his cell phone. The caller tells him - "We've got your wife. You can have her back for two million dollars." Given that the gardner has about $25K in the bank and, by the way, truly loves his wife, this becomes a great set up for the story.

Third, you've got to have the "supporting material" - the lettuce, tomatoes and cheese. Koontz gives us that by populating the book with interesting characters that push the story along, while making sure we never quite grasp which ones are important (the cheese) and which ones are just there for looks (the lettuce) - a scraggly surfer-dude sidekick, a father with weird ideas about parenting and, of course, an array of bad guys to choose from.

But, what makes a Big Mac a Big Mac is, of course, the secret sauce. Here is where Koontz is at his best giving us a fast paced plot with unpredictable twists and turns. Even though pieces of the plot might look like globs of unknown stuff, they constantly surprise the reader with how easy they go down.

The ending is a little weak - kind of like those last few cold french fries - but, by then, you've got a smile on your face and you're ready, after a brief diversion, to go on with the rest of your day.

The book was actually probably good enough to get an "A", but, like a Big Mac, it leaves you feeling a little guilty that you actually this crap, so......