THE DARKEST EVENING OF THE YEAR
Dean Koontz
Bantam
Supernatural Thriller
ISBN: 9780553804829

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Rin Tin Tin, Lassie and Benji each are considered to be "man's best friend." With THE DARKEST EVENING OF THE YEAR, Dean Koontz hopes to add the name of one more dog to the list of smart and heroic canines: Nickie.

Nickie comes into Amy Redwing's life after a frantic phone call. A woman with an abusive husband is afraid he will maim or kill the dog just as he did the family's previous pet. Amy runs a rescue organization for dogs and is especially concerned about Golden Retrievers. She takes her boyfriend Brian along to pick up Nickie, and the moment they meet her, their lives begin to change. Nickie is beautiful and peaceful, and Amy knows right away that she will keep Nickie for herself instead of putting the dog up for adoption.

That night, mysterious things start happening. Lights turn off and on in Amy's house, and Nickie reminds her of a night many years ago that she has struggled to put behind her. Back at his apartment, Brian spends hours upon hours compulsively drawing pictures of Nickie; eventually he begins to hear the beat of huge wings flying around him. As it turns out, Brian, too, has a secret past.

The action is quick, and soon Brian and Amy are on the road, following the instructions of Vanessa, the woman who has what Brian wants most: his 10-year-old daughter. As they drive, bringing the magical Nickie along to meet Vanessa, Amy finally tells Brian about her troubling past and the tragic winter night nine years ago that changed the course of her life. Meanwhile, readers are also following the activity of a group of shadowy psychopaths bent on death and destruction.

Moongirl and Harrow are the evil counterparts to Amy and Brian. With a predilection for arson and random murders, they are hoping to leave soon for the desert but need to take care of some business first. Readers may soon suspect their deep connections to Amy and Brian. Also showing up for the evil team (which seems to balance out all the selfless dog lovers who work with Amy at the Golden Heart rescue society) are a collection of unprincipled private investigators and killers for hire who are tracking both Amy and Brian, collecting evidence of their pasts in order to destroy it all and finally bring them to the man who wants them dead.

Finally, the characters --- including Piggy, a 10-year-old girl with Downs Syndrome --- all meet on a foggy night at a California lighthouse for a (surprisingly brief) battle between good and evil. In the end, it seems that Nickie may have been an angel (or the spirit of a murdered little girl) sent to tip the scales to the side of good and help defeat evil.

Koontz's latest has some interesting ideas but lacks nuance. Everyone is heavenly or hellish with no realistic gray areas. The plot, although not lacking for some fun twists and devices, wraps up rather neatly. Koontz refers to several other writers (one bad guy takes the aliases Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater, borrowing from Vonnegut) and tries to make a point about modern fiction, but it is lost in the shuffle. And he seems to want to say something deep about things like hope and despair, companionship and isolation, cynicism and the heights of the human spirit. In the end, though, littered with proclamations such as "...the companionship of dogs inspired a sense of timelessness, of peace, of the profound grace always waiting to be discovered when the noise of daily life subsides," this is really a dog's tale. The miraculous Nickie is the star of the book, which is sort of an ode to Golden Retrievers in general.

THE DARKEST EVENING OF THE YEAR is far from Koontz's best work, but as it is a story about redemption, perseverance and (quite literally) hope, it may be worth a read for his many fans.

    --- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

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