Hideaway

Rating:
Summary: horrible
Review: This is by far one of his worst books. The movie was much better than the book. Twilight Eyes was one of his best books. Hideaway the movie explores the intensity of the situation better than the book. The movie scared me, the book did not

Rating:
Summary: Rather, you should hide, away from this book.
Review: Long on suspense, short on satisfaction, this book was rank, unfrightening, and more Ren-and-Stimpy shock horror than fulfilling. He tries to ask some philisophical questions which aren't very well dealt with. One of the reviews in the inside cover says he tackles themes worthy of C S Lewis. Well, maybe he tackles them, but then he gets scared and runs away from them with his tail between his legs

Rating:
Summary: Koontz's best. . .
Review: HIDEAWAY is by far Koontz's best book. The action starts as soon as you open the first page and it doesn't stop until you reach the end. When Hatch is killed in a car wreck and is brought back to life, he brings something back with him. Something that connects his mind to a deranged killer who brutally murders his victims and then keeps them as his trophies. Koontz takes you into the mind of this madman, and what you find there is Koontz's best literary creation yet. You will not be able to put this book down, I read it in only two days

Rating:
Summary: One of the great...
Review: The book "Hideaway" by Koontz, must be one of the greatest books that he ever wrote. It starts off with an intesity that just want you to read faster and faster. The way that Koontz describes the main characters in this book, is bay far the best I've ever seen. The story starts out with a couple that is on their way home. It is dark and rainy. Then a truck comes along and suddenly the truckdriver slides over to the wrong direction, wich causes the couple to drive over the edge to certain death. But somehow they manage, but the man has these nightmare, and they just wont go away. In my opinion, only "Strangers" have been better so far. But then again, I've only read about 11-12 books...but anyway... I have only one solution for you. Read it! Brandon Haven

Rating:
Summary: Hideaway hits the mark.
Review: A gripping novel, Hideaway brings Koontz's writing to a whole new plane where the suspense builds from page to page with un-ending intensity. The pictures he draws are vivid and frightening, and the characters are among his best. An excellent read that can only be faulted by it's ultimate climax. A great build-up that falters ever-so-slightly. Otherwise, a highly recommended read.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic read!
Review: After being a Stephen King fan for years and loving all that I had read, I decided to check out Dean Koontz, and Hideaway was my first. At first I was dissapointed, trying to get used to this new style of writing. It took me awhile to get into it, but when I did it hit HARD.

Hatch and his wife are traveling during a snow storm and they end up in a terrible car accident, rolling the car down the side of a cliffand into a freezing river. Hatch dies and after being worked on in the emergency room, is brought back to life after being dead for a record shattering amount of time. After his accident, the couple begin to learn to love life and are having a great time, but they miss their son who died of cancer years ago and decide to adopt a child-a crippled, spunky girl named Regina. She's lived a hard life of rejection and tries to turn them off by acting like a little brat, but she soon puts down her defenses and accepts their love and shows the sweet girl that she really is.

But it seems that Hatch's time in the land of the dead has done something to his mind. He's now seeing visions of murder and mayhem that terrify him and make him fear for his sanity. And now a vicious young killer is aware of Hatch's presence and is determined to track him down and kill him and his family.

The hellish setting at the amusement park was truly captivating, as was the killer's gruesome memory of pushing his friend off of an indoor roller coaster at a young age. It really sends shivers up your spine. The entire book was captivating as is the killer. He's young, handsome, and eerily polite, but he's a crazed demon man.

All in all, it's definetely one of my favorite books ever, an excellent introduction to Koontz, and I do look forward to reading it again. Intensity was my favorite, though.

Rating:
Summary: Koontz does it again
Review: If you’re a serial killer lover, a thriller chaser, a supernatural addict, or just another Koontz fan, Hideway is definitely worth your time. The characters are well written, the suspense is tight, the pacing swift, the ending brutal, and the middle never lags one bit. As always, Koontz injects moral lessons in his work, and they're hard to miss, but never preached to you. This novel is not as dark as some of Koontzs other stuff, but the atmosphere fits the plot. Another Koontz for the shelf!

Rating:
Summary: A Painful Slog toward an Ugly Destination
Review: Very difficult book for me to get through, then an ending that made me wish I didn't bother. I could hardly keep my eyes opened through Koontz's drawn-out medical "drama" and his melodramatic evil characterizations. I simply found the book boring, but decided to stick it out. It did not scare me; it did not make me laugh; it did not satisfy me in the end. Life is too short for this type of over-written and under-plotted and under-characterized work. I couldn't bear to give the book only one star, because it was obvious Koontz was trying really, really hard to make a literate and informative book. But I never gave a damn about the phony characters--from peter perfect resuscitation patient to the doctor that just loved his darn patients too much to the evil man in sunglasses that lived in the realm between life and death, I couldn't buy it. It felt contrived, like most of the books from Koontz.

Rating:
Summary: Strong Start, Disappointing Finish
Review: Hideaway is one of those books which start out great, with a big bang, and goes downhill from there. The start of the book starts with Lindsey and Hatch, the main characters, in a major auto accident that sends their car toppling down an embankment and into a river. Koontz illustrates the excruciating details of this accident beautifully. He really puts the reader rigth into the car with his characters.

After that, however, the book slowly slides downhill. It begins when Hatch starts experiencing 'visions' of horrible things that he soon realizes aren't nightmares, but actual events. Hatch has apparently carried back the ability to psychicly link-up with a serial killer, who also happens to be possesed by an evil spirit. It also just happens that the serial killer was also brought back from the dead by the same doctor who brings Hatch back from the dead. It also happens that this serial killer was that doctor's son. It also happens that this serial killer wants Hatch's wife Lindsey and their newly adopted daughter for his 'collection' of bodies that he is dedicating to Satan in an attempt to earn his way back into hell. Have all of the 'it also happens' gotten to be as ridiculous to you as they did to me?

A word about the characters in this book. Usually, Dean Koontz comes up with believable characters that I like and can root for (or against). In this case, I think he really screwed up. I began to hate the main characters in this book, Hatch and Lindsey, as soon as they decided to go ahead with their adoption even though they knew they were likely putting the child in the way of a serial killer. What kind of people are they? Who wants to root for someone like that? After that point in this book I kept hoping that the two main characters would 'get it' while the child was somehow spared.

This is not a great Dean Koontz. I seriously hope that people do not pick this up as their first DK book. I can't imagine that they would read another after that.

Rating:
Summary: Wish he would have done more with the plot
Review: This is a story that starts out great, has a few inspired moments, and then ends very disappointingly with too few questions answered. The idea is very good. A man (Hatch) is brought back from the dead after drowning in icy water. This has been done in real life after a limited amounts of "dead" minutes, but the novel has the main character "dead" for eighty minutes before revival happens. Apparantly, based on the rules of the book, when one is gone that long, one comes back with certain powers. One of these is the ability to see what other people in the same situation can see.

What makes this even juicier is that the person Hatch seems to share this ability with is a flat out nutcase serial killer. Koontz does very well here to try and create a person about as evil as modern mass publishing will let him. The bad guy, Vassago, wants to kill the right combination of people to somehow allow him to get back into hell, which he apparantly liked before also being revived. While torturing and killing a virgin or two (as well as some non-virgins) pretty much pushes the envelope as to what the publishers will tolerate, we should probably be thankful Vassago doesn't get to carry out what he REALLY wants to progress to.

All this sets up well, as we get the obligatory scenes where Hatch starts discovering his powers. We also see Vassago already established, and Koontz does a good job of teasing us by giving Vassago's background little by little. But I wish he would have given us more on the details of these powers.

First, Vassago seems to also have some other powers besides being able to see through Hatch. One of these is night vision, and there is a hint of increased physical strength and speed. I would have liked to know more about these powers, and see them used more.

I also realize that we are dealing with a killer whose oars are not entirely in the water, so any logic Vassago has can be chalked up to that fact. But in my book, if he wants to go back to Hell, he seems to be certainly qualified based on his "first" life. If not, one murder would probably ice it, but he seems to need this elaborate chain of them, culminating in one really nasty one to insure his goal. But I guess you can't have a novel about a serial killer unless you get a good example of the "serial" part. This is not bad, mind you, but I found too many holes in the motive.

All that I could live with better if it weren't for the ending. I find it too quick, too simple, too "we've seen it before". Without revealing it, I was just disappointed that after this big mental buildup between the two, there could have been some, let's say, "quality" time between them. Time to match wits face to face, and using the powers both of them have. But all of this does not come to pass.

Ann Rice may overdo it in explaining the rules to her worlds, but as least we do know the rules. I would have liked to have seen more of them explained in this work.