Prolific author Dean Koontz is in his seventh decade of writing, and I am proud to say that I have been with him nearly from the start. In the early days, writing as Dean R. Koontz and a half-dozen pseudonyms, his work was heavily science fiction-driven, and later he drifted into horror/supernatural and suspense. He has been among the best in all of these genres, and I am always excited to read anything that he produces.

Koontz’s latest effort, THE OTHER EMILY, is a terrific psychological thriller with more than a touch of suspense and hints at the possibility of veering into sci-fi or horror at a moment’s notice. Bestselling author David Thorne approaches an attractive young woman at the bar in one of his regular Newport Beach restaurants, and the first words out of his mouth is a tacky line: “Where have you been all these years?” This lady, Maddison Sutton, is a dead ringer for his late wife, Emily Carlino, who disappeared 10 years earlier.

"You simply have no idea what is going to happen on the next page and cannot get there fast enough. THE OTHER EMILY is a relentless page-turner of the highest order as readers will be eager to learn what is really behind the unbelievable events that seem to be transpiring."

Emily went out one night and never returned. The theory is that she may have been another victim in the killing spree of now-incarcerated serial killer Ronald Lee Jessup. David is so desperate to confirm this that he meets regularly with Jessup at the penitentiary under the guise of doing research for a new novel. Jessup allegedly murdered 27 women, most of whom were killed in the underground house of horrors that he built in his extended basement. Supposedly he is keeping 14 unnamed victims in some form of cocoon. Like the Frankenstein tale, Jessup believes that he will get out and be with these women, who he will revive from their current undead state to live in glory with him. David lets Jessup speak his nonsense purely because he wants to know if Emily is among the 14.

Every once in a while, readers come across a fictional character they connect with in some way. That’s exactly how I feel about David, especially when Koontz describes him as being impressed by Maddison’s profound interest in literature. This is unusual in this digital age when the language arts are receding into the mists of the unfashionable, along with a knowledge of history, an appreciation for complex music, general civility and so much more that he values. Yes, David is my kind of guy. I guess that is why it becomes so difficult to watch him go through the pain of having to relive his wife’s death over and over as he is possibly deluding himself that Maddison might indeed be her.

We know that this is an impossibility, especially since 10 years have passed, and Maddison is the same age that Emily was when she died. But we also are aware that Koontz deals with impossibilities for a living and does it so well to the point that he could present almost any reason for this eerie coincidence and make it sound believable.

David reaches out to a good friend, private investigator Isaac Eisenstein, and asks him to investigate Maddison once he explains how he met her and his crazy assumptions of who she might be. Isaac cannot verify much about Maddison and feels that her entire identity may have been falsified. He can only connect her to a wealthy man named Patrick Michael Lynam Corley, who died seven years earlier from a sudden heart attack. David is able to visit Corley’s residence and feels that something strange is going on. He also makes note of all the science fiction novels that line the shelves of his copious book collection (a nice shoutout to Koontz’s own start as a sci-fi writer).

The trouble is that there are a handful of people who swear they have seen Corley in the years after his death. As David starts following the tracks left by the various contacts Eisenstein utilized in investigating Maddison, he begins to find additional holes and plenty more questions than answers. He even turns up evidence of people who had been murdered in what appeared to be the work of an assassin --- those who were connected to Corley in some way.

I will not give away anything else, but knowing that Koontz has penned sci-fi, horror and even a few novels loosely based on Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN, it is easy to understand just how intense a reading experience this book is. You simply have no idea what is going to happen on the next page and cannot get there fast enough.

THE OTHER EMILY is a relentless page-turner of the highest order as readers will be eager to learn what is really behind the unbelievable events that seem to be transpiring. Koontz knows that he has crafted a finale that will shock and satisfy audiences worldwide in much the same way that he has been doing throughout his illustrious career.