Sometimes a mayfly skates across a pond, leaving a brief wake as thin as spider silk, and by staying low avoids those birds and bats that feed in flight.

At six feet three, weighing two hundred ten pounds, with big hands and bigger feet, Timothy Carrier could not maintain a profile as low as that of a skating mayfly, but he tried.

Shod in heavy work boots, with a John Wayne walk that came naturally to him and that he could not change, he nevertheless entered the Lamplighter Tavern and proceeded to the farther end of the room without drawing attention to himself. None of the three men near the door, at the short length of the "L"-shaped bar, glanced at him. Neither did the couples in two of the booths.

When he sat on the end stool, in shadows beyond the last of the downlights that polished the molasses-colored mahogany bar, he sighed with contentment. From the perspective of the front door, he was the smallest man in the room.

If the forward end of the Lamplighter was the driver's deck of the locomotive, this was the caboose. Those who chose to sit here on a slow Monday evening would most likely be quiet company.

Liam Rooney--who was the owner and, tonight, the only barkeep--drew a draft beer from the tap and put it in front of Tim.

"Some night you'll walk in here with a date," Rooney said, "and the shock will kill me."

"Why would I bring a date to this dump?"

"What else do you know but this dump?"

"I've also got a favorite doughnut shop."

"Yeah. After the two of you scarf down a dozen glazed, you could take her to a big expensive restaurant in Newport Beach, sit on the curb, and watch the valets park all the fancy cars."

Tim sipped his beer, and Rooney wiped the bar though it was clean, and Tim said, "You got lucky, finding Michelle. They don't make them like her anymore."

"Michelle's thirty, same age as us. If they don't make 'em like her anymore, where'd she come from?"


"It's a mystery."

"To be a winner, you gotta be in the game," Rooney said.

"I'm in the game."

"Shooting hoops alone isn't a game."

"Don't worry about me. I've got women beating on my door."

"Yeah," Rooney said, "but they come in pairs and they want to tell you about Jesus."

"Nothing wrong with that. They care about my soul. Anybody ever tell you, you're a sarcastic sonofabitch?"

"You did. Like a thousand times. I never get tired of hearing it. This guy was in here earlier, he's forty, never been married, and now they cut off his testicles."

"Who cut off his testicles?"

"Some doctors."

"You get me the names of those doctors," Tim said. "I don't want to go to one by accident."

"The guy had cancer. Point is, now he can never have kids."

"What's so great about having kids, the way the world is?"

Rooney looked like a black-belt wannabe who, though never having taken a karate lesson, had tried to break a lot of concrete blocks with his face. His eyes, however, were blue windows full of warm light, and his heart was good.

"That's what it's all about," Rooney said. "A wife, kids, a place you can hold fast to while the rest of the world spins apart."

"Methuselah lived to be nine hundred, and he was begetting kids right to the end."

"Begetting?"

"That's what they did in those days. They begot."

"So you're going to--what?--wait to start a family till you're six hundred?"

"You and Michelle don't have kids."

"We're workin' on it." Rooney bent over, folded his arms on the bar, and put himself face-to-face with Tim. "What'd you do today, Doorman?"

Tim frowned....

 

Richard Ferrone has a deep, portentous voice, and it gives a distinctively dramatic style to Dean Koontz's newest thriller. The book is a somewhat implausible chase story in which a lonely bar patron is involved in two instances of mistaken identity in the same night, both involving an envelope stuffed with cash and a murder-for-hire scheme. This unlikely hero alerts the intended victim, and the two of them race to stay ahead of the killer. Ferrone's narration skimps on personalizing the characters (as does the novel, especially with regard to the killer), but the suspense whipped up by Koontz's strong pacing is given more gravity and thrills in Ferrone's accomplished performance. G.H. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

 

"Dark suspense leavened by just enough sentiment.... Fans of Koontz will recognize and relish his trademark, gently ironic dialogue and firmly fleshed characterizations."

 

"A thriller so compelling many readers will race through the book in one sitting.... , the novel's breathless pacing, clever twists and adroit characterizations all add up to superior entertainment."

 

"White-knuckle suspense as gripping as any Koontz has ever written."

 

"Shades of Alfred Hitchcock.... Get ready for tension as only Koontz can create it."

 

"Dean Koontz is a master of his craft.... [He] will make you think twice about the high price of being an innocent bystander.... Chalk up another one for the good guy, who knows how to search for a small patch of light as darkness threatens all around."

 

The Good Guy by Dean Koontz
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