Rating: 
Summary: Not the usual Koontz
Review: This book is more of a detective mystery than the usual horror book you see from Dean Koontz. As far as writing from Dean Koontz, I place it second only to Watchers although it is very different.
Rating: 
Summary: His name is Koontz, James Bond Koontz
Review: This book is unique for Koontz. The style is more like that of a screenplay, fast to read and filled with short paragraphs and dialog. The content is an international spy thriller, involving, and tying together, Vietnam heroes, Soviet spies, brainwashing science, the Manchurian Candidate, and scenes in Japan, London, and St. Moritz. This is not a horror novel, anymore than The Boys in Brazil. There is no supernatural element here. The story is good, and you will like it. But you will realize that Koontz is no Fleming, Le Carre, Clancy, etc. You can see why he went on to what he did. There is a good TV movie here, no blockbuster starring Harrison Ford.
Rating: 
Summary: Plunge deep into the suspense...
Review: This is a first class page-turner with non-stop action...unpredictable, psychological, and traumatic on your nerves. Although this is one of Dean Koontz's first books, it doesn't lack the suspense which he weaves into every page of his writing. From the very first page, his characters, Joanna Rand and Alex Hunter, took an almost tangible form in an exotic setting that was very realistically painted. The plot was enhanced by being set in Japan. Joanna Rand, a successful business owner, is plagued by crippling phobias that prevent her from leading a normal life. Alex Hunter crosses paths with her during his visit to Japan and finds her situation intruiging. Since he is a detective, he recalls her as a missing person he had been looking for many years earlier. While trying to uncover her story, he discovers that there's a deeper and more frightening dimension to her history. The story is so gripping that I was reading like a machine. At one point I almost got hypnotized myself while reading a scene where the character is hypnotized. The reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5 is because the book took a political twist at the end. I must admit, though, that I was gritting my teeth down to the very last word. Very intense and well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Solid
Review: This is Koontz' premier, first printed in June '79. The text has since been re-worked to include modern events such as the fall of the Soviet Union, Lexus cars, etc. I found it a great read and not predictable which today is reason enough to read it. The words flow seamlessly in typical Koontz style, while the international stage adds excitement, from exotic Japan to remote Saint Moritz, cold war antics and all. Even includes hilarious East End London Cockney dialect, not to be missed! My 2nd book of his, I'm hooked!
Rating:
Summary: highly contrived, shallow, and sometimes offensive
Review: This is my first Dean Koontz book and I am looking forward to more. However, I had several problems with this book. First, the story was very contrived, with many elements ripped off from The Manchurian Candidate. The plot was usually tedious and predictable, and often infuriatingly unoriginal; i.e. dead characters that keep coming back to life, or characters explaining things that should have been resolved by the narrative. Second, all the characters were poorly developed. The main character, Joanna Rand we only see as a victim and not as a fully realized human being we might root for. The love interest and detective, Alex Hunter, does nothing but sleep with Joanna and feel sorry for her, and there is nothing special about him that would clue us to why Joanna loves him--even though she keeps saying she does. Third, Koontz's supposedly visual prose style is static and mundane, sometimes unbalanced, and on more than just a few occasions, ungrammatical to the point of being unreadable. Finally, some of the violence done to the women characters were plain offensive. This is not a bad book, but you would not want to read it straight on say a long flight. It is best read over a few days, so you can put it down instead of having your patience tested, or your interest constantly straying.
Rating:
Summary: Page-turning
Review: This is my first Dean Koontz book and it was the most fascinating book I have enver read, I wasn't able to tell the horror part, it didn't really scare me at all, it's just of spine-tingling terror. That german doctor guy creeped me out though. The end was totally unexpected, I loved this book and I am now a Dean Koontz fan for life. If anybody likes brainwashing, foreign deciet, lies, mistaken identity. That's this book "The Key To Midnight. All of those things rolled up into one. One of the most engaging novels of all time. I love this book. I finished this book in one day, it was impossible for me to try to put it down. My parents got mad at me because I stayed up so late reading the book. I would tell myslef "just one more chapter" and then 50 or 100 pages later I would realize how much I really read.
Rating:
Summary: Great Mystery!
Review: This is one of Koontz's better mysteries. I like all of his books, but not all of them leave you on the edge of your seat trying to figure out a secret. The best part- it's about the main character in this book! Can you imagine how scary it would be to question & doubt who you are? That's the one thing we all think we at least know, if you don't know that- who can you trust? This is one of my favorite books of his. Go out & get it!
Rating:
Summary: BEST BOOK EVER
Review: This is standard Koontz fare, elevated by wonderful local color in Kyoto. It reads very much like a Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn intrigue/love story, the sort of thing Stanley Donen or Alfred Hitchcock would direct: the heroine is suffering from inexplicable amnesia, and the hero is a spy whose loyalties are in doubt. There's just enough suggestion of kinky weirdness to float it through - a bizarre character with metal hands, for instance. It's a bit long for what it is, but it satisfies.
Rating:
Summary: Hitchcock In Japan
Review: This is standard Koontz fare, elevated by wonderful local color in Kyoto. It reads very much like a Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn intrigue/love story, the sort of thing Stanley Donen or Alfred Hitchcock would direct: the heroine is suffering from inexplicable amnesia, and the hero is a spy whose loyalties are in doubt. There's just enough suggestion of kinky weirdness to float it through - a bizarre character with metal hands, for instance. It's a bit long for what it is, but it satisfies.
Rating:
Summary: It's Dean Koonts Best!!!!
Review: This was the first Koonts book I ever read and I've been hooked since then. I love the way he mixes this story with politics, corruption, love and human goodness. I recommend it to anyone and even though I've read many of his books since then, this one remains my favorite!
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