After the Last Race [Hardcover]

Dean R. Koontz (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Fawcett (1975)
• ASIN: B000ME009A
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,057,559 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born and raised in Pennsylvania where I graduated from Shippensburg State College (now Shippensburg University). When I was a senior in college, I won an Atlantic Monthly fiction competition and have been writing ever since. My first job after graduation was with the Appalachian Poverty Program, where I was expected to counsel and tutor underprivileged children on a one-to-one basis. During my first day on the job, I discovered that the previous occupier of my position had been beaten up by the very kids he had been trying to help and had landed in the hospital for several weeks. The following year was filled with challenge but also tension, and I was more highly motivated than ever to build a career as a writer. I wrote nights and weekends, which I continued to do after leaving the poverty program and going to work as an English teacher in a suburban school district outside Harrisburg. After a year and a half in that position, my wife, Gerda, made me an offer I couldn't refuse: "I'll support you for five years," she said, "and if you can't make it as a writer in that time, you'll never make it." By the end of those five years, Gerda had quit her job to run the business end of my writing career. Gerda and I, along with our dog, Trixie, live in southern California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Above-average early stuff, September 17, 2001

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: After the Last Race (Hardcover)

Dean Koontz, After the Last Race (Fawcett Crest, 1974)

availability: bookfinder.com

Well, if you're going to write genre novels, you might
as well cover every genre. This is Koontz' first, and
really only, attempt at a straight hardboiled-style
thriller. A loose-knit gang of would-be thieves have a
plan to hold up a racetrack on a day when there will
be at least two million dollars on the premises.
Simple, easy to understand, with some nice plot twists
and excellent characterization. Koontz takes a
jaundiced look at the excesses of the seventies and
the excesses of thriller writers like Spillane all in
one gulp.

This is one of the longest novels Koontz wrote before
becoming a superstar, and one gets the feeling he was
testing his expansiveness legs, as it were.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work quite as well here as
it does in much longer books (e.g. Whispers or The
House of Thunder); the first fifty pages, especially,
are slow as molasses. Once it picks up, though, it
picks up fast.

This may well be the hardest Dean Koontz novel on the
planet to find. It's worth searching out, but the
prices will probably scare you more than most of his
later novels. ***

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars early writings, September 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: After the Last Race (Hardcover)

For all you regular Dean Koontz fans who don't recognize this title, it is because it was one of his very early books. Originally published back in 1974! That may be the reason some people might not enjoy this writing.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very different from newer Koontz, October 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: After the Last Race (Hardcover)

This book starts out slow, but picks up toward the end. It is very un-Koontz-like. It's not a horror or even a suspense novel. If you're a Koontz fan you may want to read it just to say you've read it.