The Face, by Dean Koontz

In my reviews, I always like to give tidy, encapsulated plot "blurbs" that'll give potential readers a "feel" for the story, so no matter what my opinion is, hopefully they'll give it a try themselves. Call it my Book Reviewer's Hippocratic Oath - to lend my opinion, but "doing no harm" - or my attempt to avoid being a cranky reviewer who does nothing but gripe about how bad the book is. In any case, as a reviewer, it helps me re-immerse myself in the story so I can have a clear view of the narrative's strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully give the reader a good preview of the work itself.

Every now and then, I read a book that's so captivating, I find myself a little loss for words, and this is me in regards to The Face, by Dean Koontz. A growing fan of all things Koontzian - right down to his dog Trixie's pretty humorous photo scrapbook on his website - I'd thought I'd found his best with his current Odd Thomas series, but it turns out I was wrong. I finished The Face last night, and sat astounded at the awesome universal truth revealed in this bit of prose from the end of the novel:

"Her face is lovely, but within it he sees another face, as within Typhon there had been another, though this visage is not poured from the distillery of nightmares. Impossibly, the face - the face - within her face his yet more beautiful than hers, the source of her radiance, so profoundly beautiful that he would be stunned breathless if he were not a spirit who had given up breathing when his body had been shorn of him.

The face of infinite and beautiful complexity is also the face of a mercy that - even now, in his ascendant state - he can't fully comprehend but for which he is inexpressively grateful."

Now that, my fine feathered friends, is just some good writing.

In Ethan Truman, ex-cop who now works as a chief of security for Channing Manheim, otherwise known as The Face, Koontz has crafted yet another realistic hero who battles the forces of evil not because he's epically brave or heroic, but because it's the right thing to do. Manheim's beleaguered and somewhat forlorn son Aelfric - or just Fric, as he'd prefer - is written the way all kids should be written: thoughtful, deep, almost heartbreakingly aware of the world's harsher truths (It's my secret belief so many children are written so badly in adult and even YA fiction because their accusation of us adults is true - we really don't understand them at all!) In The Face, however, Koontz again does what he's done hundreds of times over: he lays his finger on the pulse of what it is to be human: the dreams, hopes, despairs, and nightmares - the whole package.

The plot - a stalker obsessed with the forces of chaos and entropy who believes his assault on the Manheim estate will bring to public his prowess and the illusion of "security" - is involved, twisting, turning, intricately laid, but even so, it's secondary to the development and growth of the main characters.

Koontz manages to do what few writers can; he blends genres effortlessly, and though The Face begins innocuously enough as standard fare: a suspense novel about a "down and out cop" protecting a self-involved actor from an obsessed fan, it quickly morphs into an astounding supernatural, spiritual tale that will leave the reader reflecting fate, destiny, and redemption long after the story closes.