Finished Mo 10/12/15
My hardbound copy which I had never read.
No aliens or alternative universes, but much more terrifying.
Michael Ackblom repressed watched his father attack and kill is mother when he was eight years old. And, when he was fourteen, he discovered that his father was a serial killer and he shot him.
He spends the rest of his life traveling the country with his dog, Rocky, telling people his story in long barroom chats.
Rocky was abused before he came to Spencer and is basically terrified of everything. He is every bit as 'human' as any of the other characters in the book.
Because his father was not only a notorious serial killer (over 40 kills), he was also a famous artist. Michael (now known as Spencer Grant) becomes a wizard at computers and is able to bury is old identity. He also is an ex-Army Ranger.
When he enters a bar called 'The Red Door' he meets the love of his life. Valerie Keene. She is also in 'deep cover' and a computer whiz. She was the daughter in law of the Assistant to the US Attorney General who is responsible for a 'Black Op' that has subverted American liberty.
Roy Miro is the head of an operation that is trying to kill Valerie before she blows the whistle on this clandestine governmental coup. The government seizes citizen property and is able to fund a massive 'off the books' fascist operation in the name of government policy.
Roy murders people in the belief that he is helping humanity and ending their private suffering. He is a vicious psychopath, but an essential component in the unholy Black Op system.
The novel begins when Spencer goes to the bar where he first met Valerie and she has called not reported for her shift. He goes to her home and enters the house just as it is hit by Roy's SWAT team. He escapes, and later is rescued by Valerie in a flash flood.
Spencer, Rocky, Valerie, and Roy are the principal characters in the novel.
As with most Dean Koontz novels, it has an electrifying beginning.
The book was released in 1994 and I'm certain that things have gotten much worse in the last two decades, but in the afterword Koontz states that to preserve American democracy 3 things must be done-
1. We must revoke all asset-forfeiture laws in their entirety.
2. The Congress must cease exempting its members from laws passed to govern the rest of us.
3. Congress must stop enacting laws that criminalize beliefs that are politically incorrect or unusual but that harm no one, for these are what George Orwell termed 'thought crimes'.
The section of the novel where a police captain is set up and then the government seizes all of his property is especially chilling. This is years before Homeland and The Patriot Act, and now it must be many times more dire for the average citizen.
I loved the book and this might just be my favorite Dean Koontz novel. I wonder what he would say about his predictions today with the Patriot Act and so forth?
Link to wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Rivers_of_the_Heart
Link to Amazon-
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Rivers-Heart-A-Novel/dp/0345533038
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