Sunday Salon: The Good Guy by Dean Koontz

3.5 stars

ISBN-10: 0553589113; 13: 978-0553589115

Publish date: April 29, 2008

Paperback; 496 pages; $7.99

Fiction, Suspense

I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys suspense.

The Good Guy might just be a little too “goodie goodie”

As a long time fan of Dean Koontz’s novels, I was drawn into The Good Guy because of the intriguing premise: a nice guy in a bar gets mistaken for a hired assassin and is shown a picture of a woman that someone wants dead. The opening definitely grabbed my attention, as did the promise of more insight into Tim Carrier, the main protagonist, whose life is a bit of a mystery throughout most of the novel.

While the premise remained interesting, I’m afraid I started to lose interest in the characters. I craved to know more about Tim and Linda, the woman with the target on her back, and to feel some emotion from them. There wasn’t enough back story to satisfy me and I just didn’t care about them.

The constant witty banter between all the characters made everything seem like a joke or something to be made fun of. I don’t see people reacting this way in real life. It took away from the believability of the novel. The most interesting character was the killer, a very sick and twisted man who gives the reader insight into the secret society that has hired him.

While The Good Guy won’t be my favorite Koontz novel, it is a decent read. There is enough action and suspense to keep you reading. It doesn’t compare, however, to most of Koontz’s earlier works, such as Watchers or The Taking. It also misses out on the supernatural element that we usually think of when we think ‘Dean Koontz’. I give this book 3.5 stars, yet I’m looking forward to reading more Dean Koontz novels.


~Cheryl Kaye Tardif

author of Whale Song, The River and Divine Intervention

http://www.cherylktardif.com