Customer Reviews

Whispers

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

WHISPERS was a major breakthrough in Dean's career, and when you read the book, it's easy to see why. It's an excruciatingly suspenseful tale of a talented, yet troubled young screenwriter being stalked by a relentless psycho who has a rather unique background of his own (to put it lightly).

But that's merely the surface story here. Koontz explores the serious theme of how childhood experiences can exert a powerful--if almost invisible--influence on an adult's life. It's a distinctly Freudian theory, and it's interesting to note that in interviews several years after he published this book, Dean criticizes his views as naive and uninformed.

Nevertheless, whether you agree with the psychological theories or not, you can read and enjoy this book for what it is: a masterful example of the suspense tale executed by a truly brilliant author. I refer to this novel again and again as I publish my own suspense novels, for sheer inspiration!

Highly recommended!

This is a highly suspenseful book, written in clear, spare prose. It is an easy read and a definite page turner. It is a plot driven book, however, with little character development.

The plot itself is simple. A beautiful screenwriter, Hilary Thomas, is confronted in her own home by an intruder named Bruno Frye. It seems that Mr. Frye has been stalking Ms. Thomas in the belief that Ms. Thomas is his long deceased mother, Katherine, who has ostensibly come back from the dead in order to kill him. He feels that he must kill her, before she kills him.

Of course, Ms. Thomas has no clue as to why Frye has singled her out. She is aware only of his murderous intent, and she is afraid, very afraid. On Frye's first go around with Ms. Thomas, she survives. On the second go around, Frye does not. Thinking herself to be safe, as Frye has seemingly gone to his maker, she is shocked when he, yet again, confronts her with deadly intent.

Why this is happening and how, will certainly keep the reader turning the pages. Some of it is predictable, but it, nonetheless, makes for an absorbing, easy read. This is one of the author's better, early efforts. Readers who enjoy suspenseful novels will not be disappointed.

Dean Koontz wrote WHISPERS in 1980, and was his first large success. I enjoyed this novel overall, because it is highly suspensful serial killer story (especially toward the second half of the book). It is also very well written and I liked most of the major characters.

Although enjoyable, WHISPERS isn't perfect. This is a very long book, almost twice as long as your average suspense novel. It tends to drag a bit at the beginning. There are also long dialogues between characters which seem more like disguised political commentary than real conversations.

This is also the most sexually explicit novel by Koontz that I have ever read; I would not recommmend this novel to people who don't care for those types of scenes. There is a relatively graphic rape scene toward the end of the book that seems pretty gratuitous to me --it doesn't really serve to push the plot forward.

This book, although very good, isn't nearly as great as Koontz' later stuff. If you want to begin reading Koontz, I would suggest starting with novels like WATCHERS, PHANTOMS, LIGHTNING, INTENSITY, or ODD THOMAS. Those are much better novels overall, and more representative of the great talent that Koontz possesses.

This is the first book by Dean Koontz that I read, and even after finishing INTENSITY, MR. MURDER, HIDEAWAY, and THE EYES OF DARKNESS, it still ranks as my favorite. I am a bit of a skeptic when I read book reviews raving that the book is "chilling" or "spine-tingling," but I can honestly claim that WHISPERS was both those things and more.

The reason I appreciated WHISPERS so much is because of the incredibly well-crafted plot. As a mystery fan, I really enjoy reading a book that gives you an impossibly baffling plot twist and finally wraps up the entire story at the very end, tying up all the loose ends. Koontz shows himself to be not only a master storyteller but a super plotter. At first glance, this book may seem like another cheap, come-back-from-the-dead serial killer novel, but at the end, everything is explained logically and realistically, which makes it all the more shocking. But it isn't just the plot; there are genuinely horrifying moments and the climax is both suspenseful and disturbing. One of those books that makes you sit back after reading the last sentence and say, "Wow."

The first book by Koontz that I read was Phantoms and since that I have read a number of his books and loved all of them (except "Midnight", which was decent but not great). My favorite was "Lightning", but "Whispers" is equally good, perhaps even better.

Hollywood screenwriter marked by a traumatic childhood, Hilary Thomas (a typical Koontz character) gets attacked by a respected man, Bruno Frye. Hilary manages to kill him in self-defense, but realizes her problems aren't over when he attacks her again. Has he come back from the dead? Together with policeman Tony Clemenza (who would prefer being an artist instead of a police), she tries to find out what has happened. Soon, the fascinating story of the Frye family slowly unfolds.

Like in Koontz other books, we get a psychological explanation to the behavior of our "heroes", but what is even more important in this book is that we get to explore the mind of the "villain", Bruno Frye. In for example Koontz' "Intensity", we get no explanation why the villain is behaving as he is, he is just sick (but it's a very good book too, and well described). It seems as if Koontz can make up the most fantastic story and make it sound totally logical.

This book is not only very good entertainment reading but it also makes you think. I recommend it to everybody!

(Unfortunately, I read Shattered first, which was not really so impressive for a new Koontz reader, but seemingly unique nonetheless.)

I really enjoyed reading Whispers because of its great plot, genuinely unique but realistic at the same time. DK has an admirable writing style wherein he combines his thickening plot with lots of twists & subplots without losing the main idea of the story---albeit, even complementing it & adding more to the suspense. I also admire his narrative skill -- it made me feel like I was really there, experiencing every tremor of the earth, every whisper in the dark.

His book is not solely for entertainment but one with values as well. After reading the book, I learned not to take everything in face value. Not everyone is beautiful & not every beautiful creature is truly beautiful inside. Likewise, noone is truly, dark & bad at heart. Somehow, somewhere, somebody turned them to be what they are right now. Last but not the least, there is always hope in life. If you were born poor & dirty, you do not necessarily have to live & die as such. Life has a lot to offer..whether you live in LA or elsewhere.

My first Dean Koontz book was Phantoms, which was absolutely the most terrifying book ever. I got hooked, and in time I read The Funhouse, The House of Thunder, Darkfall, The Vision, Watchers, and then Night Chills, but for a long time, Whispers sat on my shelf, and I finally decided to read it. I read it about four or five weeks ago, and right afterwards, I was shaken. However, in the weeks following until now, I have constantly been thinking back to it and shivering. I cannot understand why Dean Koontz is always immediately classified as a horror writer (the same goes for Stephen King). He has only written about three novels that could be classified under "horror", and this is not one of them. In fact, this novel is one of the furthest things from horror; it is pure suspense and mystery. It is a novel about people. It is about people who are scared, who are in stressful situations, who are trying to know what is going on, and who are trying to keep themselves from being engulfed by all this stress. Not to spoil the book, but I thought that I should mention that the killer in the book is scared of the dark. Not just scared of it, either, but absolutely terrified. This is one of the things that gets to me the most about this book; since I am scared of the dark, I can relate to him, and even feel pity for him. The story that goes with this novel is astounding, and is truely a mystery. For a long time, Phantoms and Watchers were my favorite books by Mr. Koontz; now that I have thought about the situation more, I realize that Whispers is truely my favorite. I almost cried in some scenes, and almost screamed at others. Alltogether, however, I truely gasped at most of the scenes. Because of this book, I have a better reason to keep all the lights on in my room at night; otherwise, the room fills with all these strange whispers... That's all.

This 500 page thriller kept me on edge for its entirety. When Hilary is brutally attacked by a seemingly psychotic madman, she is forced to defend herself which results in her attacker's death. How is it possible then that the same man is once again after her, more determined than ever to destroy her? What follows is both filled with mystery and intrigue, as well as extremely horrific scenes and imagery. Once again, Koontz fills this novel with both violent and sensual sex. He really has a way of arousing the senses, whether through pleasant emotions or outright creepy ones.

The reason this book is better than the other Koontz books I've read is due its complexity. There's a lot more going on here than it may first appear and when all the separate threads start to come together, even if you once again know what's going on before the characters do, there's a high level of excitement and anticipation.

"Whispers" is the 5th Koontz book I've read and although it is most definitely the best one so far, I still can't give it 5 out of 5 as there are flaws that stop it from reaching the upper echelons of horror / thriller literature. First of all there are quite a few occasions where the author apparently has some political stance that he wants to get out. Or perhaps it's just that he's studied a particular aspect of society in order to understand it better and now chooses to share that knowledge with the reader. It's interesting stuff, no doubt about it, but plays no part in the story itself. In fact, it only holds the story back from moving forward. Furthermore, there are some very strange decisions made by some of the main characters. There are times where the most obvious solutions to the mysteries involved are just screaming at them and yet they remain oblivious to them, preferring to look at things from a more supernatural point of view.

The characters are generally well created, given enough background information to make the reader give a damn, yet their conversations are quite often rather contrived, particularly the banter between Hillary and Tony, which is entertainingly filled with wit and humour, and yet never seems like a conversation two people that have just met each other would have. But you will have a smile on your face regardless. To Koontz's credit, both Katherine and Bruno manage to demand some sympathy, even though their actions are unbelievably cruel and brutal.

"Whispers" is a thoroughly enjoyable read despite its flaws and one that I recommend to Koontz fans or fans of tense, horrific thrillers. Once again, it's worth noting that there are some very graphically violent moments in this novel, so beware the faint of heart. I'm still looking for a Koontz masterpiece, but in the meantime, this passed away a few hours nicely.

I must say I've only read two Dean Koontz novels in my life. The first was Intensity, the second was Whispers. And it's like the same thing happened with both. I started to read the book but for some reason I found it somehow difficult to keep reading, like the book was too heavy, gave many turns and didn't push the plot forward. I stopped reading Intensity and later on I started it all over again and enjoyed it at the end. I had left Whispers behind and I decided to give it another try. I read it in four days, the last of which I stayed up till 2am. It was a great book. Not a horror novel but a very good psychological thriller which kept me guessing all the way. Koontz has created one of the most memorable villains. The reason why this one is so special is because it's not the typical EVIL character. You really get to symphatize with him more than once (something that did not happen with the character of Tony Clemenza which I didn't like and reason why I dont give the novel a higher rating). On the other hand is the victim, Hilary, a woman who has fought all her way up to the top and is scared that everything she has accomplished so far may crumble down any second. Despite the avalanche of words it IS possible to be caught inside a book like this. The final chapter is by far the best and keeps the suspense at its peak literaly until the last page (the novel does not have an epilogue). Things I didn't like, well, Clemenza's character and his relation with his partner Frank which has a dramatic change in just 2 days. Still a great read which stays with you long after closing the book. Me I'm about to read Fear Nothing and look forward to read other Koontz's.

This was the first book I read by Dean Koontz and my introduction to horror and suspense. I loved it when I was fourteen and enjoyed it as an adult. For those of you who haven't read this yet, it is a serial killer novel with a twist­­a very clever and dark one. The only complaint I have with this story is the police department. You have the typical brute who believes the protagonist, Hillary Thomas, is making her story up to get their attention. And, the cop who plays Romeo and solves her case. The descriptions are brutal sometimes, depicting the extreme side of alcohol and drug abuse quite well.