Dean Koontz's Intensity is Intense, Because It Just Never Ends

As a mystery-thriller writer, I try and read as much in the genre as I can. Humbly, I must say that I had never read any Dean Koontz, and therefore, after looking at a number of blogs and websites, the verdict was that Intensity was one of his best. I slugged, and I mean S L U G G E D through this book reading it off and on for about two weeks. Now, in the book's defense, I was reading this pretty critically because I'm always trying to analyze mystery/thrillers to determine what's working and what isn't, and after giving the book a serious looking (well, reading) over, here's what I discovered. Keep in mind, this isn't entirely a book review, just looking at compnents that were and weren't working for me. I went ahead and divided this analysis into four categories, in no particular order: plot, characterization, and general exposition.

Plot. B+ It'd be best to kind of start with this to give you a brief rundown of the plot. No, there are no spolilers, the book was written in 1995. The novel starts out with our heroin, Chyna Shepherd, on her way with her friend, Laura Templeton, to her (Laura's) parents' vacation home in California. Upon arriving, they hang out, eat dinner, and everyone goes to sleep. While asleep, a serial killer name Edgler (no, that's not a type-o), Foreman Vess breaks into the house and murders Laura and her family. It's clear that Vess has targeted this family and has planned this out. Little did he suspect that Chyna would be there because she was not part of his regular reconnaissance of the house and victims before she happened to arrive the same night he planned the murders. Chyna awakens to Vess breaking into the house, and she escapes by hiding under her guest bed, waiting for the killer to leave. After his murder spree of teh family concludes, instead of just hiding, she decides to get in her car and chase the guy down once he leaves in his camper.

Later, as Vess stops at a gas station, she gets out of her car, and overhears him talking to other people at the pump that he has someone "special" at home, and Chyna realizes that there's an innocent girl named Ariel he's holding captive. After he murders the gas station clerk, she sneaks into his camper, in an attempt to ride all the way to his house to help free the kidnapped girl. Meanwhile, Vess realizes that she's been following him the whole time and that she's snuck into his camper. He feels excited about this, wondering what she's planning on doing. He drives all the way home, and plays dumb, waiting to see what she'll do. She waits til dawn in the camper, and after she thinks he's left for work, she prowls around looking for Ariel.

Vess, who never left, surprise attacks her, knocking her unconscious. He ties her up and heads to work, not sure what to do with her. Chyna wakes up and, realizing she's trapped, manages to escape her shackles, find the kidnapped girl, and navigate across Vess's property, outwitting the dobermans before she gets in the camper, finds the keys and drives her and Ariel to safety. On the way to safety, a police car apporaoches and she blocks the road to get the police car to stop and assist, only to find out that Vess is actually a police officer and he shoots at Chyna. She tries to drive the camper off, but is sideswiped into a ditch, and then she is injured, lying in a pool of fuel spilled from the crash. As Vess is about to shoot her, she whips a lighter out (that she stole from the gass station) and ignites the fuel, engulfing Vess in flames as she rolls aside, burnt, but alive. Vess is burnt alive and dies, and Chyna finds Ariel in the woods along the highway, and then we have the normal all's well that end's well nonsense.

Characterization: B. With all that in mind (it is like a 135,000-140,000 word book, remember), it gives Koontz ample time to develop characters. The cast is short, and Koontz spends some time developing Chyna, her troubled childhood, and how her own experiences having to live with a drug addict mom and no dad have shaped her into being a survivalist, fending for herself, combined with her compassion for not wanting innocents to have to go through the trauma she went through. What this does for the reader is it helps soliidify her motivation for sneaking into Vess's van to begin with.

To that end, in longer books (this was 436 pages), most recreational readers argue that there's usually too much exposiiton on the main characters childhood/past life and how they wish there was more action. In this book, I feel that there is simply not even close to enough exposition on her backstory. It never really motivates you to really be convinced that her past is motivating her decsiion to get in the camper after she manages to escape Vess, for the sole purpose of helping some kid that he allegedly has kidnapped. It's not convincing enough.

Plot redux: B. The plot itself is somewhat flat: a girl visits her friend's house, a guy breaks in, murders her friend and the family, the girl escapes, realizes that another girl is in trouble, follows the bad guy to his house, is caught trying to help the other girl. She then is tied up, escapes her bonds, finds the other kidnapped girl, and they get out of the heavily guarded house, only to be confronterd on the road by the killer, whom she ends up killing. Koontz was attempting to write a very, very, slow-developing, nuanced narrative of the specific experiences of the whole event. All told, from the start of the book with her driving to her friend's house, to the end where she kills Vess, only 48 hours, or maybe a little bit more pass. That being said, there's only so much that can happen in 48 hours, and so I feel that Koontz gets into too much detail about every little thing, which really makes the book slug along in places. Again, the novel is estimated to be between 135-140,000 words, which is a lot considering the lack of setting/scene changes, etc.

Setting: B+ Although I admire Koontz for writing a story set entirely in four or maybe five scenes: the Templeton's house, the ride to Vess's house after he kidnaps the girl, Chyna in the house before, during, and after captivity, her escape/getting on the road, and the final scene where the car crash happens on the highway, it makes the book really drag on in parts. Although I believe Koontz's plan was to make the majority of the book, which was the ride to Vess's place and then the time at Vess's place feel cramped, claustrophobic, and seemingly neverending to add to the stress and tension that Chyna feels, the impact it has on the readers--or at least me--is that it just doesn't give them something broader to focus on and consider to keep them entertained. I know that may sound weird because admittedly, there's a lot and I mean A LOT of action in this book, which is usually a blessing, but for me it was more of a curse because it just lacked a lot of subplots and character intracies that I like (keep in mind, I'm a huge Charles Dickens fan), so the setting really diminished the complexity of the plot, and the lack of plot complexity just made this tough to read through in (long) stretches.

Exposition: B Although we can feel Chyna's physical and emotional pain (this was very, VERY well-done), exposition in the literary sense was just not there. But I think this was more by circumstance than choice. Exposition about the killer, Vess, is left ambiguous to keep the reader frightened/stressed/uncomfortable, whatever word you want to use. I think this was the only way to really maintain the suspense of the novel. However, exposition about Chyna was just not intersting, but moreover, there simply wasn't enough of it. We are with Chyna the ENTIRE and I mean ENTIRE novel, and although Koontz gives us some exposition to develop her character, he just doesn't give enough to make me really, really invested in Chyna. Not knowing much about the killer (even though I still feel Koontz does reveal enough at appropriate times) keeps it intriguing, but if you're going to leave the antagonist largely mysterious, and there's only one other character in the book, you have to give us more exposiiotn about this character. Yeah, her mom used drugs, and the boyfriend was a creep, yeah, Chyna's a psycology student, Chyna is single and has only had one serious boyfriend her whole life, and oh, Chyna went to a ranch once with her mom and one of her creepy boyfriends--that's literally all the exposiiton we get in 436 pages. It's clear that we should not like the antagonist, but I felt very detached from the protagonist and atagonist from a traditional sense (remember, I'm a Dickens fan) and although it worked, I like more complexity with character dynamics. Complicated, twisted characters with complex relationshpis with the other characters and their juxtapositon within the plot have always intrigued me more than ambiguous, mysterious characters who we don't get to know well.

At the end of the day, I'll give the book a very solid B. From a writing craft standpoint, I did take a few things away from the novel, which I hope may help me write some of my own action scenes in my mystery/thriller novel I'm writing. I think Koontz, working with a simplified plot, did a good job of incorporating non-stop action, almost too much, in my opinion. I hope I can incorporate some better action in my own novels. Would I recommend the book? Yes, but only if you really love reading longer books. It was quite a bit to get through, but I will definitely read another Koontz book soon. I think I have his novel, Tick-Tock, on my shelves somehwere, so I'll give that a try. What did you guys think of this book? What is your favorite Koontz novel or favorite thriller in general? Leave me a comment.

Cheers,

Scott