Life Expectancy: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Product Description

With his bestselling blend of nail-biting intensity, daring artistry, and storytelling magic, Dean Koontz returns with an emotional roller coaster of a tale filled with enough twists, turns, shocks, and surprises for ten ordinary novels. Here is the story of five days in the life of an ordinary man born to an extraordinary legacy--a story that will challenge the way you look at good and evil, life and death, and everything in between.

Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the frist and last time since his stroke.

What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson--five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year; the second in his twent-third year; the third in his twenty-eighth; the fourth in his twenty-ninth; the fifth in his thirtieth.

Rudy is all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted the time of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact height and weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly--the unexplained anomal of fused digits--on his left foot. Suddenly the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance.

What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What nightmares will he face? What challenges must he survive? As the novel unfolds, picking up Jimmy's story at each of these crisis points, the path he must follow will defy every expectation. And with each crisis he faces, he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. For who Jimmy Tock is and what he must accomplish on the five days when his world turns is a mystery as dangerous as it is wondrous--a struggle against an evil so dark and pervasive, only the most extraordinary of human spirits can shine through.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 335 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; 1St Edition edition (December 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553804146
• ISBN-13: 978-0553804140
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 5.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (270 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #175,395 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

134 of 144 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Koontz can still surprise me after all these years!, December 16, 2004

By	Janice Sims "Romance Novelist" (Central Florida) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In the past fourteen years, I've read everything of Koontz's that I could get my hands on and, yet, he still managed to thrill me with Life Expectancy. It wasn't the plot, nor the diabolical twists and turns. You know, right away, when you sit down to read a Koontz book that he's going to take you on a fast, suspenseful ride. You know that the characters will be well-drawn and that you will be frightened out of your wits and that sometimes you will laugh until you cry. All of those expectations were met in this book. What I got online to tell you, fellow readers, is that instead of a suspense novel that you will read in a few hours and put away, you're getting a novel that will touch you in ways you'll never forget. And, what's more, Koontz accomplishes this by not being preachy at all. I adored the Tock family: Rudy and Maddy and Grandma Rowena, Weena; Jimmy (who's the hero), and his wife, Lorrie (who is one heck of a heroine). I disagree with the critic who said Koontz's humor was misplaced in this book. I loved their humor. As macabre as Grandma Weena's stories were, they were hilarious! These characters had a zest for living that was wonderful. No matter how horrible life sometimes got for them, they did not give up. Personally, that's the only way I know how to live. You don't give up in life, you just keep going and you WILL prevail! That's what I love the most about Koontz's books. His characters have human failings, but they possess indomitable spirits. You will laugh, and cry, and shout Hallelujah! when the bad guys get theirs. An all-around rousing tale that Grandma Weena, that teller of macabre tales, would be proud of. Some highpoints for me were: The prose--smooth as silk, concise, not a word wasted. The fact that the story was populated by a multicultural cast. Okay, I appreciate that in a popular novel. It's just more realistic to me to have people from all races in a story. Wait until you read the scenes in which Jimmy and Lorrie are in their SUV on the way to the hospital for her to give birth to their first child, when a maniac in a Hummer runs them off the road during a snowstorm. You'll feel like you're in the car with them! Kudos, Mr. Koontz.

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Under the sword of Damocles, January 22, 2005

By	Eileen Rieback (Coral Springs, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

On the stormy night that Jimmy Tock is born, not only does his dying grandfather correctly predict the facts of his birth, including the fact that he will be born with fused toes, but he also predicts that there will be five horrible days ahead in Jimmy's life.

Armed with the five dates, the adult Jimmy, now a baker by profession, must face those five days. As each date approaches, Jimmy feels the sword of Damocles dangling by an invisible thread over his head. What will each horrible day bring, and when during the day will the sword drop? Each chapter covers the time leading up to and through one of the prophesied days. Those days are horrible indeed. They are also interrelated and tied to a mysterious fact about Jimmy's birth that he has yet to discover.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I closed the cover of this book, but not because of the ending. I'm referring to the fact that Koontz has redeemed himself for his disappointing last book, "The Taking," with the suspenseful and surprise-filled "Life Expectancy." Koontz is the only horror writer I know who can seamlessly blend horror, humor, love, and hope. The only reason I did not give this book five stars is because I felt his trademark juxtaposition of horror and humor actually went a bit overboard at times. The story is full of twists and turns and tension-filled moments. It is populated with quirky characters including pastry chefs, a tornado chaser, a morbidly pessimistic Grandma, demented circus performers, and a pet portrait painter. Recommended as a riveting and satisfying read that both chills and radiates the warmth of a freshly baked loaf of bread.

Eileen Rieback

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twist a Minute, December 5, 2004

By	Chandler McGrew (Bethel, ME United States) - See all my reviews

Having read just about everything Dean Koontz has written over the past twenty years I find one thread that ties them all together. I know that having been confounded by plot twists and turns all through the novel I will see the pages thinning and the end rushing toward me still not knowing how the story is going to end. And with each passing page I will think 'no way he can end this in the space he's got left'. Then I'll think, 'yes, he can. He always does.' And he will. Life Expectancy was slightly different. I thought that he had tied everything together and then noticed that there were still several pages left. Must be an epilogue, I thought. Right. An epilogue from hell that only Koontz could have come up with. And I should have known that syndactily meant more to Dean than just fused fingers...

If you are a longstanding Koontz fan like myself you will see echoes here of Odd Thomas and, more likely, Tick Tock (which, if there IS a God he will rerelease in hardcover). If this is your first Dean Koontz novel, then Prepare to be Enchanted.