The Husband (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Koontz (Forever Odd) is likely to have himself another bestseller in this pulse-pounding thriller with echoes of Hitchcock and Cornell Woolrich. One morning, Southern California gardener Mitchell Rafferty gets a call on his cellphone from a stranger saying that Mitch's beloved wife, Holly, has been kidnapped and that he has less than three days to come up with $2 million in cash. Of course, he's warned not to involve the police. While Mitch is still on the phone, the kidnapper proves his seriousness by directing Mitch's attention to a man walking a dog across the street. A moment later the man is shot dead. Mitch must walk a fine line—cooperating with the police inquiry into this murder without revealing Holly's plight. Koontz ratchets up the tension in a manner sure to captivate most readers, though some may find the ending anticlimactic. (May 30)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* It's another boring day in paradise for gardener Mitch Rafferty, planting impatiens on a rich client's lawn. Then his cell rings. It's Holly, his wife, and she doesn't sound good. Someone slaps her, she screams, and a man comes on to tell Mitch that he has 60 hours to raise $2 million to ransom her. Just so Mitch knows they mean business, the man says, see the guy walking a dog across the street? Mitch looks and blam! A bullet to the head kills the dog walker. Let this be a warning, too, that the kidnapper-killers will know if Mitch says word one to the cops about his predicament, and Holly will suffer. Where is a gardener supposed to get $2 million? The sinister caller says he'll let Mitch know; just be a good machine and follow instructions. Despite his terror, Mitch does until . . . But uh-uh-uh, nothing should be given away about this sinuous nail-biter's developments. Suffice it to say that Mitch's intensely warped family, managed according to his rigidly materialistic psychologist-father's theories; two betrayals, one of Mitch, the other of the kidnappers; a slick child pornography entrepreneur; a humane but persistent police detective; and a New Ager psychopath all help ratchet up the suspense and the violence. But Koontz focuses relentlessly on Mitch and, in chapters scattered judiciously throughout the latter 230 pages, Holly. Not for him the flirtation with evil thinking that an Elmore Leonard does so well or the temptation to sympathize with evildoers that an Alfred Hitchcock offers. And yet Koontz is no less an artist for his championing of the good and his determination to have readers identify with it, as this hair-raising thriller attests. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (May 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553804790
• ISBN-13: 978-0553804799
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (313 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #264,446 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

114 of 129 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dean "The Ratchet" Koontz, June 5, 2006

By	Colin P. Lindsey (Manchester, NH) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As I read this novel I just kept thinking to myself that no one takes a bad, awful situation, and then makes it shockingly worse, better than Dean Koontz. When you think things are as bad as they can get, he ratchets down and you realize just how wrong you are. Things can get much worse, oh indeedy. Then, of course, he defies your comprehension and makes it worse again, and then again. Koontz does escalating tension and events better than anyone, and does it with such deceptively simple writing that his stories feel like terrifying roller-coaster rides: the hair curling build-up of tension, the shrieking plunge into depths of despair and hopelessness, then the shocking, violent twists and turns, and finally, heart-pounding and breast heaving, you safely glide to a controlled stop and the safe normal world you are accustomed to can resume again.

In The Husband, a simple gardener is interrupted while working by a cell call. His wife says she loves him and then abruptly screams in pain. A merciless voice comes on and informs him that they have his wife and they want $2 million. He only has $11,000 in his checking. Events unfold rapidly from there, and, as I said above, things slide from awful and impossible, to horrfyingly worse, through many lightning quick, and equally shocking, plot twists. Details about the kidnappers and Mitch's strange family are parceled out in tantalizing bits and pieces which make the bizarre and incomprehensible beginnings finally make sense.

Mr. Koontz has focused on themes of love, goodness, family, and kindness confronting evil, despair, and self-interest in many of his recent books and this one is no exception. A good man, who truly loves his wife, is called upon to face the unthinkable, contend with evil more complex than simple kidnappers, and confront his past in a haunting, complex story that is a well-told, lovingly crafted page turner. This is a story of goodness, love, and hope, beset on all sides by evil, deceit, maliciousness, and despair and a couple who must persevere and face these things head on in order to triumph. I really enjoyed this novel as I have many of his previous ones like the Odd Thomas duo and Life Expectancy. This is in the same vein as those novels. I didn't much like Intensity, perhaps because it didn't follow the same formula as these other novels. If you enjoyed Life Expectancy and Odd Thomas though you'll be sure to enjoy this one from Koontz too.

75 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Always a good read, May 31, 2006

By	Margaret Dybala "too many books, too little time" (Pearland, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Once again, Mr. Koontz has given us a wonderful rollercoaster ride of action and suspense. The story opens with an outstanding scene in which an ordinary, nice man, owner of a small two-man landscaping business, is called on his cell and told that his wife has been kidnapped. A bystander is shot to show that the kidnappers are watching and mean business. And they expect Mitch, the main character, to obtain 2million dollars within a few days to get his wife back. It seems an impossible task. Along the way, Mitch meets with terrible betrayals as we learn his compelling family history, while his wife deals with strange, strange kidnappers. I don't want to say much more, lest I give away too much. But I do recommend this book highly. I bought it at 6pm last night and couldn't go to bed till I was finished reading it! It will keep you turning the pages anxiously trying to find out what will happen next!

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The life and times of Mitch Rafferty, November 14, 2006

By	Eddie Lancekick "A Regulator" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Dean Koontz's latest novel is a great thriller that I found myself not wanting to put down. Like Stephen King, I feel some of Dean's best writing is when he is not involving the supernatural playing card in the deck. The characters seem a little deeper, the story very plausible, and the tasks, tragedies and triumphs a bit more heartfelt, making you, the reader, care that much more about the outcome.

The journey to that outcome centers on a man named Mitch Rafferty. Mitch lives a simple life with his wife in Southern California (if that is even possible, but bear with me here). He owns a small landscaping company, while his wife is a secretary at a Real Estate firm. Mitch and Holly enjoy the simple things in life, and dream of raising a family of their own soon. One day while on a job site, a call on his cell phone changes his life forever. On the other end, he realizes his wife is in danger, and she is not alone. A man tells him that they want 2 million dollars raised in ransom for her release, or she will be killed. He is given only 3 days to accomplish this seemingly impossible task. The confusion and terror start here; Mitch doesn't even have $100,000 in the bank let alone 2 million. They seem to know how much he does have in the bank, right down to the penny. They also seem to have an eye on him at all times, audibly telling him in real-time to watch a man across the street right before he is killed by a long range rifle. They do this to tell him they mean business, and that if he goes to the police, they will slowly cut his wife up into pieces.

Mitch loves Holly more than anything in the world, but don't think for a second that Koontz saturates us in the meaning of family, love and life. We get that description in good doses, but the theme here is all about surprises, shock value and the continual tests and tasks Mitch must face in order to bring Holly home safe. The novel is a thriller to say the least. From the first page to nearly the last, Mitch Rafferty suddenly has to become something different in order to do anything for love. More of his family becomes involved, though at first indirectly, and this is when we are introduced to his brother Anson, who ultimately plays a bigger part in the whole thing than we can imagine. Koontz does an excellent job of developing the characters of Mitch and his older brother, who are different in more ways than one. Last but not least is Holly, the loving wife of Mitch who has found herself in a dark place and has to spiritually and cunningly try to outwit one very psychologically profound abductor.

Detective Taggart is another character that adds a whirlwind of suspense to the overall setting. Taggart is good at his job, so good in fact, that he quickly finds holes in Mitch's story regarding the day the pedestrian was gunned down near his job site. As Taggert begins to pursue Mitch with guarded skepticism, Mitch realizes that his bloody and harrowing journey to save his wife's life is only going to get more complicated as time goes on. The only knock on this novel was the ending. Koontz wraps it up in a way that you are not really expecting, necessarily, but at the same time it leaves you perhaps a tad disappointed with the simplicity of it. A lot of loose ends are left open for speculation as we do not get to see what all happens with the clean up of the aftermath left in Mitch's wake as the final few hours tick away in a sprawling web of gunman, kidnappers, police, and pedestrians. We do learn the fate of Mitch, his wife, one of the kidnappers, Anson, Taggert, and Julian Campbell (a business associate of Anson's) but other characters that came into play are I guess, just hauled off to the morgue in obvious fashion.

The scene in the desert with Mitch facing off against two gunmen at night was superb. Koontz did a good job of describing the landscape it takes place in as well an envisioning the fright and caged animal scenario that our main character is facing. Despite some nitpickings a reader may find, I myself loved the story. You'll find all the suspense, mystery, and psychological string pulling you could ever want in these 416 pages.