The Good Guy » (Reprint)

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.

Timothy Carrier, having a beer after work at his friend s tavern, enjoys drawing eccentric customers into amusing conversations. But the jittery man who sits next to him tonight has mistaken Tim for someone very different and passes to him a manila envelope full of cash.

Ten thousand now. You get the rest when she s gone.

The stranger walks out, leaving a photo of the pretty woman marked for death, and her address. But things are about to get worse. In minutes another stranger sits next to Tim. This one is a cold-blooded killer who believes Tim is the man who has hired him.

Thinking fast, Tim says, I ve had a change of heart. You get ten thousand for doing nothing. Call it a no-kill fee. He keeps the photo and gives the money to the hired killer. And when Tim secretly follows the man out of the tavern, he gets a further shock: the hired killer is a cop.

Suddenly, Tim Carrier, an ordinary guy, is at the center of a mystery of extraordinary proportions...

Library Journal

Timothy Carrier goes to the local bar for a drink and instead is handed a wad of cash and a photograph; someone thinks he's a killer-for-hire. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.