Winter Moon » (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.

Deepest night, Montana. An eerie light proclaims the arrival of a mysterious watcher in the woods. And one solitary man begins a desperate battle against something unknown—and unknowable.

Broad daylight, Los Angeles. An ordinary morning erupts in cataclysmic violence. A young family is shattered in a heartbeat.

Fate will lead this family to an isolated Montana ranch, but their sanctuary will become their worst nightmare. For there they will face a chillingly ruthless enemy, from which no one—living or dead—is safe.

Publishers Weekly

A brush with death prompts L.A. policeman Jack McGarvey to move wife Heather and son Toby up to Quartermass Ranch, a Montana estate bequeathed to them by Eduardo Fernandez, the father of Jack's former partner. The McGarveys settle in, dismissing strange noises and smells, as well as weird trances that seem to grip Toby from time to time, as the embodiment of common fears of urbanites confronted by open spaces. It seems Eduardo had had uninvited visitors: the Givers, creatures from another dimension who came for an incomprehensible, apparently evil purpose. Scared out of his wits, Ed succumbed to a heart attack, but not before scrawling his discovery on a legal pad and stashing it in the freezer. These Givers are actually takers, assuming control of bodies and corpses to use them as vehicles in which to create mayhem. And now they want control of Toby. Bestselling author Koontz ( Hideaway ) exploits and occasionally skewers many horror novel and film conventions--including telepathic mind control games and the obligatory ``surprise'' blizzard during the climatic battle--to great effect while building tension in this gripping parable about the real cost of ``getting away from it all.'' (Feb.)