I don't understand why my favorite authors are often considered to be hacks. I kind of take that as a personal insult. Is prolificacy (prolificness?) and success somehow a bad thing? Two of those favorites are Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
The most recent Koontz book I've read was The Good Guy, a story of mistaken identity, where the protagonist is taken for a hit man. He spends the rest of the book protecting the intended victim (a compatible female, natch). It wasn't his best book, but I enjoyed it. I've rarely been disappointed by Koontz. My only beef is (excepting the omnipresent golden or Labrador retriever) is that his characters tend to repeat: a perfect man and a perfect woman meet under dire, supernatural circumstances and banter amusingly while being attacked.
Stephen King doesn't do that. His characters are unique, and distinctly drawn. The stories are rich, and dense (too wordy for some people). In Duma Key, the protagonist is a successful building contractor, critically injured in a construction site accident. After a painful recovery (and the abandonment of his wife), he makes a new life in the Florida Keys. There, he takes up painting, and finds that his paintings not only depict past, present and future events, they can affect them.
The writing is very descriptive, and played in my mind like a movie--or mini-series. If I have any complaint, it would be that the setting does not resemble the Keys I'm familiar with. But I can reason that away fairly easily. The supernatural villain made it that way! There we go, all fixed.
So, if you want a good summer read (and a lengthy one at that), you'd be hard pressed to do any better than Duma Key. Buy it (or check it out), you'll thank me later.
Recommended
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