Thursday, November 26, 2020

THE BAD PLACE by Dean R. Koontz

 Finished (again) Tu 11/24/20

This is one of my paperbacks and my favorite Dean Koontz novel.

I love the opening scenes. A man awakes in a dark alley and something (or someone) is chasing him. He flashes back and forth between different realities. And, he can only remember his name and what is this brief case filled with over one hundred thousand dollars?

Frank Pollard- he killed his mother and his brother Frank is the entity that is chasing him. Frank, Candy, their mother, and twin sisters, Violet and Verbina are cursed with telekinetic powers. The twins have a herd of cats and they can read their minds- 'Hive Mind'. Their mother was a hermaphrodite and impregnated herself. Her father was a hallucinogenic drug-abuser and her mother was his sister. Candy Pollard drinks blood and can never forgive his brother for killing their mother.  

Bobby and Julie Dakota- They run a security service. They both like 40's big band music and they are skimping so that they can pour the extra cash into their private eye business. Thomas is Julie's brother and he has Down's Syndrome and lives in a special care home. Thomas is able to 'link' with the Pollards and he senses that their energy is coming from 'A Bad Place'. Bobby and Julie want to make enough wealth to allow Thomas to live with them sometime in the future. 

Thomas and his friend, Dereck (also Down's Syndrome) are two of the most sympathetic characters in the novel.  

Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith were going to play Bobby and Julie Dakota in the screen adaptation, but the deal fell through. In the proper hands this could make a fantastic movie. 

The book's page at Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Place

I really loved the book and the telekinetic powers mixed up with a twist on the private eye drama was very effective. 



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