INTENSITY
(1996)
Maybe you've
passed by this book at your local bookstore more than once, maybe you've been
put off by the quirky, dazzling cover and have dismissed this incredible story
as one of the ordinary, run-of-the-mill pieces of fiction crowding the shelves
nowadays. What a mistake! Go grab it now, reader, because you're missing a
gripping story that's likely to jump on the first notches of your
best-thrillers list.
Chyna Shepherd has a tormented past. She walked out on
her mother, a junkie with a record of evil specimens as boyfriends, when she
was sixteen. Now she studies psychology and she's going to spend a tranquil
week-end with her friend Laura's family in Napa Valley. Yet she's about to
experience a sudden, dangerous nosedive in a night of sheer terror, as she
happens to cross the path of a vicious sociopath, a ruthless psycho who breaks
into the house where she's hosted to massacre everyone he finds. Edgler Vess is
a self-proclaimed "homicidal adventurer", who believes he's in such a
deep communion with every living thing that he can draw upon their vital force
in the very moment of their death. Chyna comes unscathed out of the mayhem but
finds herself tangled in a web of intricate and terrifying situations as she
stalks (or is stalked by?!) the killer through the whole night. She'll spend
the following 36 hours in a pulse-pounding hide-and-seek in which her courage,
hardened by a childhood of loathsome violences, will be her only lifeline.
The narrative structure is a classic Koontz-esque one,
with the alternation of the characters' points of view in a succession of
medium length chapters. The outlandish choice of the present tense in those
passages where the villain's moves are described, which at first I thought
would be a negative element, proved to be a subtle way to convey the striking
clash of personalities between Chyna and Vess.
The characters are well depicted and a few flashbacks
on their past life allow them to be believable even when their choices may be
reputed to be too daredevil.
The pace only slacks off in a few, minor occasions,
when DK sets out to fathom Chyna's motivations maybe once too much, but this is
just, if anything, a secondary glitch. What is outstanding is that Koontz
managed to create a number of scenes where tension oozes out of every page, in
which you get so engrossed to feel like you're walking abreast with the
protagonists. I couldn't help wondering what I would do if I were one of the
characters, or what other plan I would concoct to take my opponent by surprise.
Suffice it to say that everytime I get into a large gas station I'm reminded of
one of these thrilling parts...
This book, though, isn't only an example of tightly
packed action, as it is strongly supported by Koontz's rich prose. Vivid
imagery and original similes provide the bare plot with a solid backspine.
Putting it down, in other words, is a psychological
torture. Don't miss the book that really lives up to its name. 9/10