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Whispers by Dean Koontz May 12, 2010

Book Review:  Whispers by Dean Koontz

 Whispers, the book that catapulted Dean Koontz to fame, was published in 1980 and was Koontz’ first breakout hit – under his own name.  Koontz has written under 10 names other than his own since he started publishing novels in 1968.

 His first million-seller was The Key to Midnight (in the summer of 1979), published under the “gender neutral” pen name Leigh Nichols.  Not long after, in the fall of 1980, another Koontz pseudonym, Owen West, found million-seller success with The Funhouse.  According to Koontz himself, he was seriously contemplating getting a real job when Whispers was accepted.  (This must have been before The Key to Midnight and The Funhouse became back-to-back hits, since anyone selling 2 million copies of their novels wouldn’t really be considering a career change.) 

 Koontz, who was simultaneously working with at least 4 different publishers (Putnam/Berkley, Jove, Doubleday, and Pocket Books) was asked by Putnam/Berkley to cut the novel down, but he was unwilling (or unable) to do it, insisting they accept or reject the novel as it was.  Koontz held his ground and won out, and based on the paperback sales of Whispers, he appears to have been right.

 Whispers reads like a typical Koontz novel, which is a criticism, but I have to say I enjoyed the story.  Koontz sometimes recycles stock characters, giving them new names and locations, but I guess when you’ve published over 100 books (and counting), you run the risk of repeating yourself.  Strong, assertive female characters paired up with somewhat passive male characters is a Koontz trademark.  Detectives Michael Madison and Carson O’Conner in Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein could be a reincarnation of Tony Clemenza and Hilary Thomas from Whispers.  Odd Thomas and Stormy Llewellyn also fit the bill.  In Whispers, although Hilary has her share of insecurities and Tony is not exactly a shrinking violet, we see the same pattern.  Hilary is a highly successful Hollywood writer, while Tony is a police detective who would like to hand in his badge to be a full-time artist.

 One major difference in Whispers from other Koontz novels I’ve read (Whispers is the oldest Koontz novel I’ve read, but it’s decidedly better than other “early” Koontz novels Midnight (1989) or The Eyes of Darkness (a 1981 Leigh Nichols novel) which I found disappointing.), Whispers has more sexuality than anything else I’ve read from Koontz.  Many of his novels have sexual content, but in the others I’ve read we always stay at about a PG-13 rating.  Whispers’ sex scenes take the reader into R territory even when it isn’t required for the plot.

 Whispers offers several twists and turns which keep the reader guessing, but my main criticisms of the book are the twists themselves.  Whispers is a difficult novel to review without including major spoilers, so I put the spoilers at the bottom of the review, after the ranking.    

 Here are my generic criticisms:

The reader figures out the twists too far ahead of the characters (one of whom is a police detective), and worse, one of the biggest twists just wasn’t believable.  I think Koontz is a great writer (I’ll even admit to emulating some of his technique), but for me, I put the story above the writing.  The trouble with Whispers is in the story.  Better handling of the twists could have lifted this novel into the upper echelon of Koontz’ work.  I deducted a couple of points for the plot issues, but even though the characters seemed a little familiar, I still enjoyed the ride in this one.

 Rating:  7.5 out of 10

 *********************Warning:  Plot Spoilers*********************

Katherine Frye deciding to raise her twin sons with a single identity is a lynchpin of the plot (along with the incestuous relationship between Katherine and her father, Leo), but Katherine’s solution to having unexpected twins is extremely complicated while I immediately thought of a much simpler solution for her dilemma. 

 While concealing her pregnancy from the outside world, Katherine devises a cover story to allow her to return home with her child after the birth. 

 Her story is she has agreed to help a pregnant friend by taking in her friend’s newborn, so when Katherine unexpectedly delivers twins, she feels she can’t return home with two infants. 

 Why not?  Why not just return home with the twins and tell anyone who asked that her friend wasn’t completely honest with her when she told of her pregnancy because she feared Katherine wouldn’t be willing to help if she knew there were two babies?

 I know Katherine was crazy, but crazy isn’t the same as stupid.  I had a hard time believing Katherine wouldn’t think of the “blame the friend” approach since she was apparently smart enough to conceal her twins’ secret (and force them to do the same) for so many years.

So why didn’t Katherine blame the friend and return with her twins?  Because then Koontz wouldn’t have had maniacal, identical twins to chase Hilary Thomas around.