Dark Rivers of the Heart

A Novel

By: Dean Koontz

Narrated by: Scott Merriman

New York Times Bestseller

Do you dare step through the red door? Spencer Grant had no idea what drew him to the bar with the red door. He thought he would just sit down, have a slow beer or two, and talk to a stranger. He couldn’t know that it would lead to a narrow escape from a bungalow targeted by a SWAT team. Or that it would leave him a wanted man.

But now Spencer is on the run from mysterious and ruthless men. He is in love with a woman he knows next to nothing about. And he is hiding from a past he can’t fully remember. On his trail is a shadowy security agency that answers to no one - including the U.S. government - and a man who considers himself a compassionate Angel of Death. But worst of all, Spencer Grant is on a collision course with inner demons he thought he’d buried years ago - inner demons that could destroy him if his enemies don’t first.

©1994 Dean Koontz (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

People uncomfortable with imperfection, Beware.

While I loved the book and always look forward to more by Koontz, I really hated the villain. While we we are usually supposed to hate the villain, his ideals hit too close to home. I had to put the audiobook away for a few days and come back to it because it unsettled me too much. Otherwise, the book was great.

Great characters, underwhelming story

So, if I could, I'd potentially rate this a 2.75.

I read most of Koontz's collection years ago and kept up with his new publications religiously. So, now that I'm caught up with his most recent stuff, I'm circling back to some of his earlier stuff through Audible.

This story has great characters, but as a book, it doesn't necessarily click. There are some serious pacing issues (especially the chapters devoted to Spencer Grant, the protagonist, being stuck in his truck during a torrential downpour in the desert) and the kinky relationship between Roy Miro, the assassin, and Eve Jammer, a government employee with devious intentions.

As characters, they are all unique - as we've come to expect from Koontz - but it seems like they were taken from disparate stories and stuck together in a story that goes in tons of different directions, and never really comes together into something cohesive.

Spencer Grant, an ex-cop, running away from his childhood past (it takes us forever to get to this revelation too), falls in love with a mysterious waitress. When he arrives at her house to find her, he finds himself escaping from covert agents. This tells you that this is when Koontz was in his government-conspiracy phase. Roy Miro is connected to this shadowy organization, and his inner monologue is a lot of rambling about a perfect society. Their paths cross as the woman, Ellie, finds Spencer and Roy continues to pursue her...

...and as fate would have it, Miro is uniquely connected to the mysterious figure from Grant's past...

Then, there is a a subplot involving Howard Descoteau, a detective from Grant's past who finds himself a victim of Miro's anger - with his life as he knew it utterly destroyed - who finds himself in the crosshairs of another shadowy organization, but this one with good intentions.

It's a standard Koontz tale - forces of good versus forces of evil. And it's overall entertaining, but it definitely drags on too much. I'm sure the book could have been shorted by a few hundred pages, and the story would've been more compelling. I listened to it on Audiobook - and it may have been quarantine, listening before bed, or listening before bed after drinking two bottles of wine...but I just didn't care what happened in the back half of the book.

What happened to Spencer in his past - and the introduction of his serial killer artist father - made the book a few chapters longer than it had to me. And then we were expected to believe that Spencer and Ellie had access to a satellite-controlled laser to destroy the villain's lair.

The story just became...boring. There came a point where I just wanted the book to end and didn't care how the book ended. It's a shame because it had such a promising and intriguing start.

Not kidding with the word Dark

Way too dark and tedious for my taste. Too long and too much in the way of tortured descriptions of the main character. Gave me a couple nightmares.

Surprisingly timely!

Did not think of Dean Kootz when thinking of political thrillers but a great fit!!
Maybe a bit overdone in the more graphic scenes but may have seemed so due to audio format.

Great read

This was a great book could not put it down it just makes me see this could be reality for everyone in this world absolutely bananas but I loved the book..