A-Z Challenge: Intensity

Intensity by Dean Koontz

Past midnight, Chyna Shepard, twenty-six, gazes out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend's family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Foreman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed "homicidal adventurer," Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse or limits, to live with "intensity." Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.
Chyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safety and self-respect. Now she will be tested as never before. At first her sole aim is to get out alive--until, by chance, she learns the identity of Vess's next intended victim, a faraway innocent only she can save. Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resource she has to save an endangered girl...as moment by moment, the terrifying threat of Edgler Foreman Vess intensifies.

The title of this book explains it all. And it is the best title for the book because it really doesn't let up. I am an avid Dean Koontz reader. I am always lying in wait for the next one to come out. This one came out quite some time ago, but now and again I pick it up and reread it. Just like any book I enjoy. And this one still freaks me out and makes me double check the locks on the doors and the windows are shut. Often Dean Koontz's novels include something supernatural or otherwise strange and bizarre, but this time he focuses on an everyday fear - a killer in the house. Dean Koontz breaks the narrative of the story so that it's told by Chyna, the survivor and Vess, the sociopathic killer. Because this book doesn't have a supernatural element to it, I think it makes it that much more intense and scary; the terror is caused solely by another person A select few of Dean Koontz's novels have story lines, characters, or villains that get to me, and this was one of those. His books are typically quick reads, but trust me when I say they are still enjoyable and worth the read. And this one? This is among his best work.