She Treads Softly: The Crooked Staircase

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

The Crooked Staircase

The Crooked Staircase by Dean Koontz
Penguin Random House Publishing Group: 5/8/18
eBook review copy; 512 pages
hardcover ISBN-13: 9780525483427
Jane Hawk Series #3

The Crooked Staircase by Dean Koontz is the very highly recommended third installment of the Jane Hawk series. What is this vexation that Koontz has heaped upon me? The series is NOT over yet! I was sure this third book would give closure to Jane's whole ordeal and all it did was ratchet up the tension even more. The first two books are The Silent Corner and The Whispering Room.

Read this series if you love action adventure thrillers. More importantly, read the books in order for full enjoyment of the series as they are not stand-alone novels. The fourth book, The Forbidden Door, is expected to be released on October 9th.

So, I won't say a lot for fear of spoiling the series for new readers, but basically Jane has uncovered a far-reaching conspiracy that involves taking over the free will of millions of people through nanotechnology. Her husband Nick was a victim of the evil, secret faction, but the incidents of people being destroyed by the conspiracy is growing while Jane is trying to find a way to end it. Now she is trying to find a way to question Booth Hendrickson, a corrupt official high up in the Department of Justice. The problem is that Jane is now the most wanted person in America. She has been indicted for espionage, treason, and murder. All this has done is made her even more careful and determined to end the group's insidious plans.

Jane Hawk is a compelling, fully realized female lead - she a great lead, period. She is intelligent, tough, fearless, and manages to stay so and keep her sanity during the surreal situation the conspiracy entails. Since she's former FBI, she has the training and skills in her background that she can use to assist her own personal investigation.

Koontz presents the action in short, quick chapters, and, yet again, I stayed up way-too-late reading. There is still so much action that finding a good stopping point when reading is almost impossible and left me repeating the just-one-more-chapter mantra. the chapters alternate between the point-of-view of Jane and several different characters. I was shocked when the book ended in a cliff hanger right in the middle of a huge development. I can barely wait for the next book in the series, The Forbidden Door.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the Penguin Random House Publishing Group.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.