As in THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT, one of the protagonists of DARKFALL is a single parent, in this case Jack, a straight-arrow cop who is just beginning to take an interest in romance again after losing his wife to cancer. There are some similarities to the dynamic in DRAGON TEARS; Jack's partner is a very tough woman who had a rough childhood, and she's the "bad cop" of their good cop/bad cop act. Unfortunately, it's *not* a deliberate act for her; like Connie in DRAGON TEARS, Rebecca lacks political savvy in dealing with people.

(If you like to play symbolism games, so does Koontz; Rebecca is named for a patron saint against the loss of parents, and the traumatic loss of her parents scarred her emotionally as a child. Koontz at this stage of his writing career was much given to canned psychoanalysis, though it's far less blatant here than in WHISPERS or THE FACE OF FEAR.)

As in DRAGON TEARS, the story takes place over the course of a single day, during which the partners have run into some phenomena they can't explain. In DARKFALL, the partners are investigating a series of brutal murders in which the victims are all involved in organized crime, but the weird phenomena don't tally with a normal gang war or even a revenge killing. But the head of the family arranged for the murder of an investigative reporter some time back, whose brother turns out to be a voodoo priest from the islands...

Of the stories written by Koontz in the early 1980s, organized religion (the light side of voodoo) gets unusually sympathetic treatment. Jack and Rebecca get professional help, as it were, from a local voodoo practitioner; he comes up with an interesting philosophical defence of his religion.

Drive-in totals:
- Rats in the walls (or are they?) and elsewhere
- Two dead toy spaniels, lots of dead Family men.
- Really gross threats to young children
- Extended explicit sex scene.
- Gratuitous slur on Alan Alda, with peanut butter and onion.


A heart-pounding, un put-down-able read   April 8, 2004
 15 out of 20 found this review helpful

If you have ever wondered about what goes 'bump' in the night - this book is for you. Full of scary moments and suspense fuelled chases, I couldn't put this book down. Fantastic. Worth every penny!!


If you buy this don't buy Darkness Comes   July 26, 2003
 97 out of 101 found this review helpful

If you buy this don't buy Darkness Comes as they are both the same book.


A heart pounding, sleep depriving flight of terror.   October 26, 1999
 39 out of 41 found this review helpful

Koontz has excelled in the art of terror, using children and the creatures in the closet to the fullest. this book slams you in the chest, from the very beginning, it took 2 evenings to read, purely because you fall in love with the characters and almost feel part of the story, this is a parents nightmare come true, an attack on the sacred children, and true voodoo, if you want a horror that plays on the mind get this book. A gift very few authors can attain, to read this novel is to see Koontz at his most terryfying and superstitious best.