I particularly appreciated that Lemuel Jonson, the NSA agent trying to track down both Einstein and the Outsider, and his foil Sheriff Walt Gaines are sympathetic characters a long way from the sinister government authorities you might expect.

Indeed this is the first Koontz book I have read where all the action does not take place in one short space and time and for the most part he handled the multiple plots and perspectives well.

Indeed, to say that Koontz rarely ever obscures details, the portrait he paints both of Vince Nasco’s psychotic belief that he absorbs the lives of those he kills, and the tragic yet vicious outsider’s hatred of all things human, plus one particular canine is masterful. When detailing character experience or crafting actual scenes he’s able to progress at a methodical pace which is at the same time compelling, detailing nods of atmosphere and occasional bits of horror.

One thing which most of the less complementary (and often coprolitic) commentators of Koontz I’ve seen apparently miss is that the nuts and bolts of Koontz writing style do work exceptionally well. Cornel’s meeting with Einstein will bring him into contact both with Nora Devin, an agoraphobic artist being menaced by a sexual predator, and Vincent Nasco, a mafia hitman hired to murder the scientists responsible for Einstein’s creation, bringing Travis danger, romance and friendship greater than he could’ve imagined. Unexpectedly, he finds a hyper intelligent golden retriever whom he names Einstein who is on the run both from the governmental laboratory where he was created, and from the Outsider, a vicious genetically engineered killing machine. The story begins with ex Delta force and estate agent Travis Cornel on a trip into the California Mountains trying to find a lost zest for life he once had. Since I myself had a more generally ambivalent view of Watchers, and personally think the only thing Koontz and Hitler have in common is a liking for dogs, I hope to offer at least a somewhat saner perspective on the book, which, like all books, had both its good and bad aspects. Such is the case with Watchers, on the very same page of Goodreads Koontz is both called a visionary by one reviewer and compared to Adolf Hitler by another yes really! For every review where the reviewer carefully notes what they thought was good or bad in a book and gives a considered opinion, there are usually ten others that declare a book is the best thing ever! Or the worst thing ever! With some books this very polarisation becomes polarised, and reviews are either so effusive in their praise they border on the embarrassing, or cynical rants full of vicious vitriol. One thing I notice when I read other people’s book reviews, is that there is so much polarisation.

Dean koontz watchers review