Dean Koontz introduces the age old theme of chaos verses order in Dragon Tears employing it in his sensible protagonist Harry Lyon a detective for special projects and his chaotic partner Connie Gulliver. Throughout the course of the novel Connie and Harry struggle with each others ways to hunt down a god like madman known to them only as Ticktock.

I’ve read several of Koontz books now and I struggle to be excited by his work. So many of his concepts and plot devices have been used over and over in other novels he has written. This novel started as a white knuckled thrill ride and ground slowly to a halt. Given a sturdy plot and several avenues of subplot I could have liked this book immensely if it wasn’t for several irksome factors.

I felt he introduced to many characters to the book. As a reader I was constantly thrown from character to character and scene to scene. While the characters were well thought out and were tied centrally to the plot I did not feel a connection to them.

Koontz is passionate about dogs but he brings them into novel after novel as plot devices. EG Virgil from The Taking. The dog from One Door Away From Heaven and so on. While at first the concept is quite unique after several novels it can become very draining on the reader. I sensed several prominent concepts from Dragon Tears were also present in One Door Away From Heaven. Including the hospitalised woman who resembles drug affected mother in the later novel (I’m fairly sure One Door Away From Heaven came after Dragon tears.)

At the end scenes for Dragon Tears the scenes swing from Connie to Harry to Ticktock in a dizzying fashion that did not leave me gripping my seat and flipping through pages in desperation to know the outcome. Instead I became frustrated with the way the ending was drawn out in a tedious fashion.

In the end while I do enjoy Koontz prose I struggled to like Dragon Tears. It’s a far cry from some of his earlier novels. I feel robbed...