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Summary
Summary
A man and a woman meet by chance in a bar. Suddenly they are fleeing the long arm of a clandestine and increasingly powerful renegade government agency -- the woman hunted for the information she possesses, the man mistaken as her comrade in a burgeoning resistance movement. The architect of the chase is a man of uncommon madness and cruelty -- ruthless, possibly psychotic, and equipped with a vast technological arsenal. He is the brazen face of an insidiously fascistic future. And he is virtually unstoppable. But he has never before come up against the likes of his current quarry. Both of them are survivors of singularly horrific pasts. Both have long been emboldened by their experiences to fight with reckless courage for their own freedom. Now they are plunged into a struggle for the freedom of their country, and for the sanctity of their own lives. Dark Rivers of the Heart is an electrifying thriller that steers us along the razor edge of a familiar, terrifying reality.
Author Notes
Dean Koontz was born on July 9, 1945 in Everett, Pennsylvania. He received a degree in education from Shippensburg State College in 1967. A former high school English teacher as well as a teacher-counselor with the Appalachian Poverty Program, he began writing as a child to escape an ugly home life caused by his alcoholic father. A prolific writer at a young age, he had sold a dozen novels by the age of 25. Early in his career, he wrote under numerous pen names including David Axton, Brian Coffey, K. R. Dwyer, Leigh Nichols, Richard Paige, and Owen West. He is best known for the books written under his own name, many of which are bestsellers, including Midnight, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Hideaway, The Husband, Odd Hours, 77 Shadow Street, Innocence, The City, Saint Odd, and The Silent Corner.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Koontz's tale of a man, a woman and a dog on the run from a high-tech rogue government agency was a PW bestseller for nine weeks. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
It is difficult to imagine a reader who won't be hooked by this thriller about government power run amok and a man and woman on the run from the madman who wields that power. Spencer Grant, a mysterious and secretive man tormented by a terrible event in his past, is so taken with a waitress he meets in a Santa Barbara bar one evening that, when she fails to show up for work the next night, he goes to her home to investigate. The place is attacked by a government SWAT team with extremely deadly intent, Grant barely escapes with his life, and he's forced to follow the woman in a desperate flight. The leader of the very secret agency on their trail, Roy Miro, is literally (although not openly) insane, obsessed with perfection and driven to kill wantonly out of a corrupted sense of empathy. Koontz (Mr. Murder, 1993, etc.) skillfully keeps the reader turning the pages. The young woman who is the object of the chase does not make an appearance until halfway through the book, and the reason she is being sought is not revealed until even later. Through most of the story, only Grant knows the dark secret that haunts him and has left him with an identifying scar on his face. An amoral female government agent is added to the mix (her love affair with Miro provides some wickedly funny moments), setting up an unexpected coda to the tale. For good measure, yet another madman takes center stage in time for the inevitable final confrontation. Throughout, the author makes some telling points about government intrusion into privacy and the efficacy of asset-seizure laws. All this, plus lots of startling high-tech computer shenanigans by both sides--and one great dog. Unrelenting excitement, truly memorable characters, and ample food for thought launch this one to almost certain bestsellerdom. (First printing of 500,000; Literary Guild main selection)
Booklist Review
It's just another chase thriller, and Koontz's style (so to speak) hasn't improved, but this is his most interesting opus in a long while. That's because it's afire with Koontz's indignation over the heavy-handed manners of federal law enforcement in crushing the Branch Davidians, slaughtering the family of hapless white separatist Randy Weaver in 1992, and seizing the assets--all of them--of those merely associated, whether rightly or wrongly, with illegal drug transactions. Koontz thinks federal cops are out of control, and he paints a picture--colorless and two-dimensional, to be sure--of a U.S. only a few weeks in the future in which a secret agency is bent on becoming an invisible government in the service of a moralistic, powermongering, wealthy bureaucrat who did not hesitate in killing his own son when the young man threatened his clandestine empire-building. The actual protagonists here are a cop with a past and the bureaucrat's son's widow, both of whom are physically and technologically intrepid. Their antagonists are a complementary pair: the secret agency's principal hit man and a brainy blond bombshell who secretly monitors Las Vegas for the agency. Intriguingly, Koontz's neofascist villains are not radical right-wingers but "compassionate" liberals. The hit man, for instance, moonlights at helping the "suffering"--a paraplegic and his wife, an upper-middle-class business couple whose enterprises have foundered in a recession--by putting them out of their misery. With lead. This bland-looking sociopath also spouts environmental awareness, patronizes New Age healers and mystics, and memorably receives spiritual restoration from a TV image of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Expect this yarn to be denounced as right-wing alarmist trash by some, hailed as a libertarian warning by others, and, like virtually everything Koontz writes, read by millions. (Reviewed September 15, 1994)0679425241Ray Olson
Library Journal Review
Publishing for the first time with Knopf-and pushing back the publication date from August to November because he sensed that some competitors were lurking about earlier in the fall-Koontz sets up a typically gritty scenario: a man and a woman meet in a bar, and suddenly they are being pursued by the head of a clandestine organization wanting to wrest information from the woman. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.