The Bad Place » (Unabridged Audio, 13 CDs, 15 Hours)

Amazingly prolific and relentlessly suspenseful, Dean Koontz can be counted on for chilling, sometimes gory stories that occasionally overlap genres. His novels can jump from straightforward crime to sci-fi to horror, but the one thing he's consistent about is delivering nail-biting yarns that have kept fans reading for more than three decades.

Frank Pollard awakens in an alley, knowing nothing but his name - and that he is in great danger. Having taken refuge in a motel, he wakes again only to find his hands covered in blood. As far as he knows, he's no killer. But whose blood is this, and how did it get there? Over the next few days Frank develops a fear of sleep, because each time he wakes he discovers strange objects in his hands and pockets - objects far more frightening than blood.

Husband-and-wife detective team Bobby and Julie Dakota specialize in high-ticket corporate security investigations, but when a distraught and desperate Frank Pollard begs them to watch over him, they can't refuse. Out of compassion - and curiosity - they agree to get to the bottom of his mysterious, amnesiac fugues.

It seems a simple job: just follow a client who wants to be watched and tell him where he winds up. But as the Dakotas begin to discover where their client goes when he sleeps, they are drawn slowly into ever-darkening realms where they encounter the ominous figure stalking Frank. Their lives are threatened, as is that of Julie's gentle, Down's-syndrome brother, Thomas.

To Thomas, death is "the bad place" from which there is no return. But Julie and Bobby - and their tortured client - ultimately learn that equally bad places exist in the world of the living, places so steeped in evil that in contrast death seems almost a relief...

Praise for Dean Koontz
"A master storyteller, sometimes humorous, sometimes shocking, but always riveting. His characters sparkle with life. And his fast-paced plots are wonderfully fiendish, taking unexpected twists and turns." - The San Diego Union-Tribune

"One of our finest and most versatile suspense writers." - The Macon Telegraph & News

"His prose mesmerizes...Koontz consistently hits the bull's-eye." - Arkansas Democrat

"An exceptional novelist...top-notch." - Lincoln Journal-Star

Publishers Weekly

A psychic child warns of danger as a murderous family stalks its amnesiac brother and the married detective team the brother has hired to help him. ``Koontz should lure even more readers to his myriad following with his terrifyingly credible fantasy,'' predicted PW. (Dec.)