“Mr. Murder is a superb work by a master of the thriller at the top of his form.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Koontz is a terrific what-if storyteller . . . the narrative pace is breathless.”
—People
“The resounding variations Mr. Koontz plays on this good story, here craftily retold . . . allow him to counterpoint the new horrors about us with the old horrors already inside us.” —The New York Times Book Review
"Koontz is in fine form . . . dragging the reader along through an intricate series of twists and exciting turns.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A slam-bang suspense story.” —Lexington Herald-Leader
“Koontz engrosses the reader in terror that can almost be touched.” —San Antonio Express-News
“Scary and ingenious.” —The San Jose Mercury News
“Koontz is the consummate researcher, creating settings, people, and scenes that ring true.” —Calgary Herald
“The glue that holds together Koontz’s intriguing stories is his stylish writing . . . tight and immensely readable.”
—The Sunday Denver Post
“Mr. Murder will leave an indelible imprint on your psyche. Koontz takes us on a wild ride where the outcome is always in doubt, and the final showdown is gripping.”
—The London Free Press
“Lean prose and rich characterizations . . . Playing on every emotion and keeping the story racing along, Koontz masterfully escalates the tension . . . with the most ingenious twist ending of his career.” —Publishers Weekly
“Deliciously frightening. This author manages to put a fresh spin on every novel.” —The Calgary Sun
“An exciting, strikingly bizarre thriller.”
—Lansing State Journal
“Dean Koontz has always had the uncanny ability to take the most unlikely plot and draw in the reader . . . page after page of twists and turns that keep you guessing.”
—The Sacramento Bee
“Wonderfully suspenseful . . . bound to please his legions of fans.” —The Denver Post
“Dean Koontz just keeps getting better and better. Mr. Murder may be his best novel yet, a seamless exercise in suspense . . . [that] features some of his best characters. The Stillwaters are endearing, and the family is loving but never saccharine or sappy.” —The Flint Journal
“Tightly written, brilliantly managed, Mr. Murder goes straight to the heart of everyone’s secret fears. As always, Koontz creates solid, three-dimensional characters—he’s especially good with the children here, two endearing, funny little girls who are completely believable.”
—The Anniston Star
“Koontz neatly balances terror and mayhem with a marvelous sense of humor and keen insight into human nature, most evident in his well-drawn characterizations of the endearing and resilient Emily and Charlotte. Suspense-packed action and breathless terror.”
—San Diego Blade-Citizen
“Koontz paints a vivid portrait of the Stillwater family, the warmest, most lovable collection of people since Charles Dickens’s Cratchit family in A Christmas Carol. Koontz knows how to grab a reader’s interest and keep him or her engrossed to the very last page.” —Orange Coast
“Terrific visceral energy . . . wonderfully creepy. Koontz nails the reader to the page.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Mr. Murder is a strong and important novel, entertaining and insightful, contemporary and universal.”
—Mystery Scene
“Stylish writing, tight and immensely readable.”
—The Providence Sunday Journal
“A wonderfully thought-out and suspenseful tale.”
—The Macon Telegraph
“A stylish . . . suspenseful tale.” —Wisconsin State Journal
“A flat-out entertainment paced at breakneck speed.”
—Locus
“Mr. Murder is compulsive entertainment, so genuinely conceived and plotted that its readers will be . . . flipping the pages as fast as they can.” —Mostly Murder
“A taut and emotive novel . . . a brilliant, twisting climax. Mr. Murder is a grand slam of a book. It comes head-on at you from page one, and doesn’t stop.” —Starburst
“Koontz has done it again in this first-rate mystery.”
—The Witchita Falls Times
To Phil Parks, for what is often within, and to Don Brautigam, for what is often without. And for having all that talent without any noticeable, annoying neuroses. Well, hardly any.
PART ONE
Santa Claus and His Evil Twin
Winter that year was strange and gray. The damp wind smelled of Apocalypse, and morning skies had a peculiar way of slipping cat-quick into midnight.
—The Book of Counted Sorrows
Life is an unrelenting comedy. Therein lies the tragedy of it.
—One Dead Bishop, Martin Stillwater
One
1
“I need . . .”
Leaning back in his comfortable leather office chair, rocking gently, holding a compact cassette recorder in his right hand and dictating a letter to his editor in New York, Martin Stillwater suddenly realized he was repeating the same two words in a dreamy whisper.
“. . . I need . . . I need . . . I need . . .”
Frowning, Marty clicked off the recorder.
His train of thought had clattered down a siding and chugged to a stop. He could not recall what he had been about to say.
Needed what?
The big house was not merely quiet but eerily still. Paige had taken the kids to lunch and a Saturday matinee movie.
But this childless silence was more than just a condition. It had substance. The air felt heavy with it.
He put one hand to the nape of his neck. His palm was cool and moist. He shivered.
Outside, the autumn day was as hushed as the house, as if all of southern California had been vacated. At the only window of his second-floor study, the wide louvers of the plantation shutters were ajar. Sunlight slanted between angled slats, imprinting the sofa and carpet with narrow red-gold stripes as lustrous as fox fur; the nearest luminous ribbon wrapped one corner of the U-shaped desk.
I need . . .
Instinct told him that something important had happened only a moment ago, just out of his sight, perceived subliminally.
He swiveled his chair and surveyed the room behind him. Other than the fasciae of coppery sunshine interleaved with louver shadows, the only light came from a small desk lamp with a stained-glass shade. Even in that gloom, however, he could see he was alone with his books, research files, and computer.
Perhaps the silence seemed unnaturally deep only because the house had been filled with noise and bustle since Wednesday, when the schools had closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. He missed the kids. He should have gone to the movie with them.