Review of False Memory by Dean Koontz

Mindgames For Fun

When everything changed Martie Rhodes was taking Valet her golden retriever for his daily walk. Suddenly she became frightened of the shadows and by the time she reached home her panic developed into a fear of herself and what harm she might do to others. Familiar items around her became weapons that she might use to harm those she loved. She could picture herself using them and the damage they were capable of doing and even her car keys became a potentially lethal weapon in her thoughts.

When the panic in Martie died down to a niggling fear, she went to pick up her agoraphobic friend Susan Jagger to take her to see her psychiatrist Dr Mark Ahriman. The twice weekly visits were an ordeal for both of the women. Susan had to overcome her fear of leaving the safety of her home and Martie had to cajole, reason and argue with her friend to make sure that she got the help that she needed. Afterwards as normal Martie felt physically and mentally drained. It was hard seeing her friend who 18 months earlier had lived a normal life going through such terror, but this time she had the added edge of her own fears beginning to envelope her.

When she reached home Martie received a call from Susan who told her that she thought she was being raped regularly. Susan would wake up sore, sometimes bruised and would find sperm in her panties and the smell of a man on her body. She had no recollection of sex or being visited by any man including her ex husband Eric who Susan blamed without any real reason. The doors and windows were always locked securely and her ex husband didn’t have a key. She would put chairs under the door handles every night and they were always in place the next day even after the visits. She would still be wearing her panties and what rapist would dress her again and be able to leave the house exactly as it had been. Susan had thought of an entity like an incubus, but no it had to be Eric.

Martie told her that she would think about what Susan was claiming and ring her back, but really she had more urgent things on her mind like ridding the house of potential weapons. Knives, forks, scissors, bottles, anything that could be used to hurt anybody was being thrown into the garbage bin in a frenzy.

While all of this had been happening to Martie, her husband Dusty was dealing with his own crisis. His drug crazed half brother Skeet had climbed onto the roof of the house that they were contracted to paint and was threatening to jump off. Dusty carefully tried to talk him around but Skeet still jumped. Dusty went over with him as he directed Skeet towards the mattresses quickly laid out on the ground by Dusty’s employees. They survived the fall and Dusty booked his brother into the New Life clinic, the same rehabilitation clinic that he had attended previously.

Dusty picked up some clothes from Skeet’s apartment and searched for some clues to the cocktail of drugs that had been taken. All he found that was strange were sheets of paper with the name Dr. Yen Lo written on them. Back at the clinic he asked his brother what the name meant and Skeet said “I’m listening” while falling into a trancelike state. Under Dusty’s confused questioning Skeet quoted a Haiku and Dusty felt that the 17 syllable Japanese poem had some significance in Skeet’s strange state but what?

When Dusty left Skeet at the clinic he went home to find his house in chaos and his wife in a frightening state. The day after Dr. Mark Ahriman diagnosed Martie’s condition as a rare phobia called autophobia, possibly brought on by being close to somebody else with a phobia, her friend Susan.

Although Dusty was a mere housepainter according to Martie’s mother, he was extremely intelligent and started to question why so many people close to him and his wife were suffering huge problems. Could it all be coincidence, or could there be a human or inhuman influence?

Just a small portion of the storyline to whet your appetite but unfortunately I found this part of the novel the beginning very difficult to get into. Normally when I read anything by this author I’m immediately drawn in and don’t want to put the books down. This time I read the first hundred or so pages over several days and unusual for me considered stopping reading it because I was bored. Perhaps because there was too much description of the surroundings. Or perhaps because there were so many complex characters with complex problems in this 818 page epic for Koontz to explain while setting the stage for the murder, mystery and mayhem to come that it was difficult to make it more interesting.

My perseverance was rewarded. Once the stage was set and the clues started to unravel the excellent Dean Koontz enthralled me once more with the twists and turns of his intriguingly clever but easy to understand plot. I read as much as I could at each sitting until my eyes ached, yet I still didn’t want to put the book down.

Throughout I argued with myself over whether this novel should have been classed as horror or as a psychological thriller. There was nothing supernatural or unreal about it and indeed the events detailed could happen without stretching the imagination too much, but I would hope not to such extremes. Maybe the horror comes from within the characters; there was certainly at least one unsavoury, megalomaniac beast.

Looking for horror in False Memory, I can see it in Susan’s agoraphobic condition. Imagine a well-adjusted, happy estate agent suddenly too frightened to leave her home. Her life comes to a standstill; she can’t do her job or even look out of her windows in the daylight without fear. Then after months of anguish the mysterious rapist cruelly adds more layers of fear. She fears that it has happened - she fears it happening again. Although there is physical proof of sex, she fears not being believed because she can’t remember it happening or explain how the rapist gets into her secure home.

The horror for Martie is that she fears for her friend’s well being and with the sudden onset of her own phobia another layer is added. How can she cope with looking after her friend if she fears harming her and what if her phobia is as long lasting as Susan’s? Another great fear is that she will harm the man that she loves who has his own horrors to deal with.

Dusty loves his half brother and understands why the likable young man is such a mess. Regularly subdued with medication by his own father from an early age the same treatment continued for Skeet when their mother married her fourth medical intellectual. It was an easy step for Skeet to start using hard drugs and Dusty’s ongoing fear is that his brother will harm himself further. Suddenly fear for his wife is added, it’s horrific for him to see his wife in the grip of one of her phobic attacks and his biggest fear is that he will lose her forever if they can’t sort out what is happening to them. Despite those fears and more horrific events revealed I still think that this novel doesn’t truly belong in the horror section of the bookstores.

Unlike some authors with pending deadlines Koontz never seems to lose his skill to intrigue and interest me. Once I’d got through the first part of this novel I appreciated how he had built up the characters and their problems and given readers the opportunity to build up empathy with some of them at least. It was even fun in places. The dog Valet and his antics made me smile and I feared for him when in one part he was in danger of being shot. It would reveal too much of the storyline if I explained how a blue bag of Valet’s poop ended up on the desk of the eminent psychiatrist, but the thought of it in a symbolic kind of way makes me smile. I have the feeling that the author enjoyed writing this novel just as much as I enjoyed reading it.

As with all good things the story had to end and I don’t think that anybody could have found a better way to complete the twists and turns and tie up the loose ends with a superbly strong ending. Every time I read one of Dean Koontz’s novels he becomes my favourite author all over again. The same happened this time despite the shaky start.

The paperback is for sale on Amazon for £4.12 and is categorised in crime, thrillers and mystery and not as a horror book as the sticker on the cover states. Maybe horror stories are expected of him but you don’t always get what you expect with Dean Koontz and that is one of the reasons why I like his style.

If it hadn't have been for the slow start I would have given this book 5 stars but instead it gets 4.

ISBN: 0747258341

by Patricia Jones - 3rd August 2002

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Review Source: http://www.creativewriter.me.uk

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