The Rhodaic Standard

A recent comment influenced me to delineate the standard to which I hold all all books, as a reader. As writers, we are taught to eschew all cliches, so I'll refer to this as The Rhodaic Standard, named for Rhodium, a precious metal more expensive than gold or platinum. At least according to wiki.answers, which has to be The Rhodaic Standard of research sources, right? Good.

Those who know me will not be surprised to learn that The Rhodaic Standard is anything written by Dean Koontz. Koontz has been publishing at least one novel every year for as long as I've been alive, most of them bestsellers. Having just finished his latest, 77 Shadow Street, I debated about writing a review. How does one critique Michelangelo? DaVinci? Ryan Reynolds? Since every good book deserves publicity, even if it is destined for best-sellerdom regardless, I shall now attempt to review 77 Shadow Street. *Spoiler alert* It gets 5 stars . . .

Once my beloved soul mate introduced me to Dean Koontz (not in the flesh, though that would be supremely awesome; unless I started jumping up and down and screaming and crying like some retro-hysterical Elvis fan, in which case it would be just humiliating) and I started searching for him in book stores, I was always puzzled when I found him in the Horror section. Being a big coward who cries big, fat tears when confronted with anything remotely horrorish (Stephen King books attempted: 4, finished: 1), I never found Koontz that horrific. Suspenseful, immensely so. Slightly science-fictionish, heavy on the science, with a liberal splash of the paranormal and trademark take on Good vs. Evil. There are certain things you can count on in a Koontz, but none of them fit very well into the Dewey Decimal System or onto a genre shelf. There is typically a dog of noble or even supernatural character, a child disabled or broken but wholly good and usually ultimately a savior in some way, and a hero that is essentially flawed but has the best of intentions. He almost never revisits a protagonist, Odd Thomas being the delightful exception to this rule.

Speaking of rules, 77 Shadow Street breaks a couple of them. First, it definitely fits into the Horror category. Perhaps hard-core King junkies will scoff at my reaction, but I was definitely creeped out by this book, especially when a fictional creepy-crawly squirmed across a window at the exact moment my real-life offspring absent-mindedly rapped one finger against a wall. She then apologized and coaxed me down off the ceiling. Second, while Koontz doesn't revisit a protagonist, per se, he revisits the scene in a unique way. The Moonlit Mind is a Kindle single that was released one month prior to 77 Shadow Street, and it features the Pendleton Manor - the setting for 77SS. The characters are different, and the timing relation isn't specified (for reasons that become clear in 77SS). Both tales are haunting and lip-smacking yummy. An additional plus (minus?) is that when the true villain was revealed in 77SS, I thought boy, it's a good thing Koontz made that up and it couldn't really happen, but then--knowing Koontz as I do--I took a quick side trip to Wikipedia and learned--yep--Fiction Based on Fact strikes again. *shudder*

As Koontz's go, Intensity had me chewing more fingernails, but 77 Shadow Street had me more intellectually involved with its higher stakes and more complex villains - and protagonists. I shan't include any real spoilers, but will ask you, my fellow writers, with this question: When is the last time your protagonist had to do something truly wrong in order to do what was right?

There are other artists on my list of Go-To's for Good Reads: Diana Gabaldon, Janet Evanovich, Sarah Graves, and Lisa Gardner, whose latest release, Catch Me, is up next.