AFTER DEATH by Dean Koontz

AFTER DEATH

Dean Koontz (deankoontz.com)

Thomas & Mercer (amazon.com)

£19.99

Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop

Michael Mace is dead. Or at least he was. Now, like Lazarus, he has risen from the dead with a new – and extraordinary – ability. Michael’s plan is to help Nina Dozier, the love interest of his best friend, immunologist Shelby Shrewsberry, and her son John escape from the life they’re living in Los Angeles’ South Central. John’s father is a local gangbanger and John is reaching the age where his father has designs on making sure his son follows in his footsteps. In order to help Nina escape, Michael is going to need money. And he’s going to need to stay one step ahead of Durand Calaphas, an Internal Security Agent who doesn’t always play by the rules and who has decided that the best way to deal with Michael Mace is to put him down…permanently.

Michael Mace is the head of security at a research facility called Beautification Research when disaster strikes, killing all the staff instantly. A joint venture between the Internal Security Agency and two private sector technology companies, the incident prompts a full-scale ISA investigation, led by star agent Durand Calaphas. Before long, someone discovers that one of the corpses laid out in the cafeteria-cum-makeshift-morgue is missing, with security footage showing that it seems to have disappeared into thin air. Michael’s DNA has been fused with the nanobots that were the focus of the company’s research, giving him – quite literally – a new lease of life and connecting him to the internet, and any system connected to it, in a way that would previously have required a computer and a lifetime’s practice of hacking. He has, in short, returned from the dead as the fabled Singularity.

Michael’s first action is to break into the seemingly-impenetrable secret apartment of one of Los Angeles’ most high-powered attorneys, a man who makes much of his living through the drug trade, and robbing him of around half a million dollars and his customised Bentley. The money, it turns out, is to fund Nina’s escape, to give her and her young teen son, John, a new start in life, away from the dangerous neighbourhood where they live and, more importantly, away from John’s criminal father before he entangles his son in the gangland lifestyle that he has made his own. Meanwhile, Durand Calaphas has discovered who the missing corpse belongs to and sets out to capture or kill Michael, closing the case on the Beautification Research incident once and for all.

I have, for many years, had something of an on-again-off-again relationship with Dean Koontz. I discovered him in my early teens when I read Watchers, but always preferred King when it came to horror fiction. Over the years, I have dipped in and out and have found him to be, for me at least, something of a Marmite author. That said, he’s an enduring name on the horror/thriller scene and I have enjoyed more of his books than not. I’m happy to say that After Death is definitely one of his best, grabbing the reader from the opening paragraph and not letting go.

Much of this is down to Koontz’s talent for characterisation. We become invested in these people as we follow their progress through the book, never quite sure how attached we should become for fear that they won’t survive the next handful of pages. Koontz excels in keeping us on the edge of our seat, never letting us get too comfortable for too long. Michael himself is defined by his extraordinary new ability and by his immediate grasp of and use for the power he has been granted. Like many superheroes, there’s a turning point where he could conceivably go either way, but from the moment we meet him, it’s obvious that Michael is a good guy who will use this newfound ability to improve the world and the lives of others. He is perfectly counterbalanced by Calaphas who is, in short, a complete nutjob. Calaphas sees Michael as his way out of this current “level” and onto a whole new plane of existence. It becomes clear as we proceed that he is completely off his rocker, the embodiment of evil in human form. Calaphas is the most interesting character in the book, mostly because we’ve never seen his like in fiction before and, while he’s a difficult character to like or empathise with, his story is an intriguing one.

After Death is an interesting concept wrapped in a gripping, non-stop thriller populated by engaging characters who speak to us in different ways. This is Dean Koontz at his best, showing that when he is “on” he is nigh on untouchable. It’s the type of book where “one more chapter” will never be quite enough, the breakneck pace balanced by a warm and often funny heart on one side and unthinkable evil on the other. It can often be intimidating as a first-time reader picking up a book by an author as prolific as Dean Koontz. There’s no need to worry: After Death is pure story, pure entertainment and no ego.