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Koko

(Blue Rose Trilogy #1)

Peter Straub (Goodreads Author)

3.57 · Rating details · 8,854 ratings · 329 reviews

KOKO. Only four men knew what it meant. Now they must stop it. They are Vietnam vets a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. Very different from each other, they are nonetheless linked by a shared history and a single shattering secret. Now, they have been reunited and are about to embark on a quest that will take them from Washington, D.C., to the graveyards an ...more

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Paperback, 634 pages

Published May 8th 2001 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 1988)

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May 18, 2010 Maciek rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Those who like long, character driven stories

Shelves: owned-books, vietnam-war, thriller-mystery-suspense, own-in-paperback, big-tomes, favorites, read-in-2010, own-in-hardcover, reviewed

Koko is a lenghty tome. My paperback copy spans 640 pages and promises great things - a haunting nightmare of four Vietnam veterans, reunited 15 years after the war, thrust back into the horrors of the war when they learn about a chain of murders comitted in Southeast Asia - the murderer always leaves a playing card with the word "Koko" scribbled on it. The word has eerie connotations for the four men - they believe that a former member of their platoon is behind the murders.

After Floating Drago Koko is a lenghty tome. My paperback copy spans 640 pages and promises great things - a haunting nightmare of four Vietnam veterans, reunited 15 years after the war, thrust back into the horrors of the war when they learn about a chain of murders comitted in Southeast Asia - the murderer always leaves a playing card with the word "Koko" scribbled on it. The word has eerie connotations for the four men - they believe that a former member of their platoon is behind the murders.

After Floating Dragon and The Talisman, Peter Straub wanted to try his strenghts in a different field. He worked four years on Koko, and in many interviews names it as his strongest work. He fooled those who were expecting a supernatural tale like his two previous novels; there is little (if any) of supernatural in Koko, but there's plenty of ghosts. The scariest thing is that they are all alive.

Koko is a long, complex novel where the travel is most important, not the resolution; it's most definitely not an easy thriller or a simple mystery. It's a tale of a group of men who travelled to hell and returned with their own personal devils. And when their past calls them back, they decide to take action, and pursue the killer: through Signapore and Taipei to Milwaukee and New York City. Peter Straub in one of the interviews said that Koko was his best writing experience, where he entered a flow state in which he was with his characters and discovered that he wrote whole pages without thinking about writing them. It shows; Koko presents a world so complex and real that the reader feels like he was living in it. It does tend to wander from time to time, but doesn't life? Koko is full of real emotions, poignancy, sadness and ambiguity. Pumo, Spitalny, Beevers, Linklater, Underhill are all real people who will stay with you, and Koko is the ghost that haunts them all. These are some of the most realistic and memorable character I've ever encountered in fiction. The narrative is rich, long, detailed, satysfying and haunting, and will stay with the reader for a long time. It stayed with me.

Peter Straub has achieved something extraordinary in Koko; when he says that this is his strongest work, a favorite, he has his reasons. A long, complex journey to the heart of darkness that is not really about who - it's about why. A rare gem, worth multiple readings. ...more

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Mar 03, 2015 Arah-Lynda rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-said, abandoned

It has been at least a decade since I last tried to read this book, which I had attempted before on two previous occasions. And I knew how far I had gotten each time, if not by some whiff of remembering; then at least by the markers I had placed where I had stopped each time. It was the pure principal of the thing that fuelled my surpassing both those afore laid markers, not the prose or the characters or the story. If memory serves me correctly I bought this book based solely on my experience o It has been at least a decade since I last tried to read this book, which I had attempted before on two previous occasions. And I knew how far I had gotten each time, if not by some whiff of remembering; then at least by the markers I had placed where I had stopped each time. It was the pure principal of the thing that fuelled my surpassing both those afore laid markers, not the prose or the characters or the story. If memory serves me correctly I bought this book based solely on my experience of reading The Talisman. Having never read another Straub book I was none the less persuaded to give him, independent of King, a try. It is a hard cover first edition that graces my shelves.

And I hate putting down a book before having turned the last page. Having done so twice before did not make it any more palatable I can assure you. So why then?

Here we go:

The prose felt fractured. I had a difficult time following it and understanding the meaning behind the words. It is not like I need the author to hold my hand or explain every little thing, in fact that usually puts me off. No this was more like a giant jigsaw puzzle put together wrong, even though the pieces still seemed to fit as though the edges were malleable. I found myself going back and rereading passages and not for pleasure, just trying to find a path.

The characters, okay I am just going to say it. They all felt alike to me. Sure, there were four different Vietnam vets that reunited in Washington but to me they all read like different versions of the same man, each individually cloaked or tricked out in some other fashion, they all seemed like revenants of a common host.

The story held great potential. I thought I could see quite clearly how it might all play out. Who knows maybe I did. But in the end, at least my end if not Straub’s; I was not prepared to invest in another 400 plus pages to find out.

Straub is a prolific writer, whom my comfort food King, chose to co-author two books with. This is most likely my failure and not the authors.
...more

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Apr 17, 2017 Ron rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, whodunit, war

If you’ve thought about reading Koko, then Be Like Mike and Just Do It. Stephen King fans may appreciate this book, and know about the connection with his friend, Peter Straub. These two guys are like bookends in the horror genre. At times, they even have a similar way of writing. But Koko is its own thing. It’s not like Straub’s earlier book Ghost Story (saw the movie – have yet to read the book). To me, that was horror. Koko has horrific acts – psychopathic killer, atrocities committed in war. ...more

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Apr 08, 2010 Dirk Grobbelaar rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-own, horror

Tricksy Review

Where to start? An uneasy read, this.

There is real madness to be found here. A brooding, heady insanity.

Koko, the novel, is a disjointed, psychological, somewhat confusing affair. Why then is it such a good read? Well, because that is also the best way to describe half the characters in this piece of work. There is certainly method to the madness here. And Koko himself? He's certainly a disturbed man… and it rubs off.

This book is not a quick read, it's everything but, and when I ...more

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Oct 21, 2010 mark monday rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: blood-and-danger, murdertime

the atmosphere of degradation, regret, self-loathing, and impending doom was pervasive and absorbing. the author shows a sure hand with characterization and a steady one with narrative. the identity of the killer was unsurprising but well-conceived. and either as an extended metaphor for What We Did Wrong in Vietnam or as an ominous tract on the depths that some men can sink in their hunger for self-destruction, Koko certainly succeeds.

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Nov 19, 2011 Jon Recluse rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller, mystery

This is the epitome of mystery/thriller writing, penned by a master of literary fiction at the height of his powers.
Four men, bonded by the horrors of war, reunite to hunt one of their own, when a series of brutal killings a world away leads them back into their shared pasts, to face the specter that haunts them all.....KOKO.
A dense, complex book that showcases all of Straub's impressive skills as a wordsmith, disassembling and recreating the world around the reader, word by word, sentence by se ...more

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Apr 05, 2017 Bill Khaemba rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller-suspense-crime-mystrey, mystery

Finally finished it :) Buddy Read with the awesome The Eclectic Club It was fun ride but it had some bumps along the way :) ...more

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Jun 24, 2019 Mike rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Mike by: Maciek

Shelves: eerie-and-uncanny, failed-visionary-cults, vietnam, the-80s

This has got to be one of the best thrillers I've ever read. That might sound like a backhanded compliment, especially if you happen to know that I don't read a lot of thrillers, but I don't mean it to be. I'm even tempted to call it the Moby-Dick of thrillers; it's long after all, tempestuous, a little dreamlike, it sometimes meanders, and it's about four men in the same boat (even if not a literal one), chasing a dangerous and elusive figure from the past who may be a symbol of something, or j
This has got to be one of the best thrillers I've ever read. That might sound like a backhanded compliment, especially if you happen to know that I don't read a lot of thrillers, but I don't mean it to be. I'm even tempted to call it the Moby-Dick of thrillers; it's long after all, tempestuous, a little dreamlike, it sometimes meanders, and it's about four men in the same boat (even if not a literal one), chasing a dangerous and elusive figure from the past who may be a symbol of something, or just a man.

Koko begins in Washington, D.C. in late 1982, where four Vietnam vets from the same regiment- it seems like a stretch to call them friends- have met up to see the Memorial for the first time. It was within the first ten pages or so that I started to get the sense that this novel might be much better than I'd expected, and when I started to make mental comparisons The Deer Hunter, another Vietnam story that takes the time to meander and allow us to experience the characters' lives with them. The main character, Mike Poole, walks around near the Monument before the others have arrived, just thinking:

Here was what was left of the war...For Poole, the actual country of Vietnam was now just another place...many thousands of miles distant, with an embattled history and an idiosyncratic and inaccessible culture. Its history and culture had briefly, disastrously intersected ours. But the actual country of Vietnam was not Vietnam...

Straub empathetically captures Poole's alienation, his feeling even more than ten years later that he's returned to a country that's never really understood what he's experienced, and in fact doesn't want to understand- and that this has forever altered his sense of belonging to that country. At any time he can mentally slip into a different country, not Vietnam but Vietnam, a place that only his fellow veterans have been. Somehow, neither post-war mythologizing nor congratulations from the Coca-Cola company in his hotel lobby seem to offer much in the way of comfort or edification. Was this what he'd spent so much time wanting to get back to?

During his first surreal eighteen months back from Vietnam, Poole had been able to tell if a man had been in Vietnam just by the way he held his body. His instinct...had faded since then, but he knew he could not be mistaken about this group.
'Hello, sir', said a clarion voice at his elbow.
Poole looked down at a beaming young woman with a fanatical face...she held a tray of glasses filled with black liquid.
'Might I inquire, sir, if you are a veteran of the Vietnam conflict?'
'I was in Vietnam', Poole said.
'The Coca-Cola company joins the rest of America in thanking you personally for your efforts during the Vietnam conflict. We wish to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to you, and to introduce you to our newest product, Diet Coke, in the hope that you will enjoy it and share your pleasure with your friends and fellow veterans.'
Poole looked upward and saw that a long, brilliantly red banner...had been suspended far above the lobby. White lettering said: The Coca-Cola Corporation and Diet Coke Salute the Veterans of Vietnam! He looked back down at the girl.
'I guess I'll pass.'

The aspect of the story that might sound more reminiscent of a 90s cable miniseries is that the four of them have also come together to discuss a string of killings in southeast Asia; the killer has been leaving their regiment's distinctive playing cards as his signature, and it would follow that he is someone they know, or knew. No, more than that; like it or not, they share an intimacy with him. I have a feeling that the ingenious serial killer with the occult signature is more common in fiction than in reality; but soon enough I was nodding along, won over by the uniquely foreboding and uncanny atmosphere, the sharp and economical dialogue, the story's understanding that violence inevitably echoes over the course of years, as well as the feeling that Straub had genuinely managed to channel these characters from his unconscious, getting their voices on paper and then carefully arranging them in a labyrinthine plot that always seems to be on the verge of splintering apart or capsizing like a lifeboat in a maelstrom.

As long as I'm making out-of-left-field associations, here's another one. I re-watched Vertigo last week, and it struck me that the atmosphere and the images- especially that shadow in the bell tower at the very end, that moment of silence before the audience (not to mention Kim Novak) understands who or what it is- are so powerful that they almost nullify the fact that there's a plausible explanation for everything that's taken place. Koko has some of that same tension. Yes, everything that happens in the novel can be explained more or less rationally, but the uncanny atmosphere that Straub conjures is somehow more convincing. Throughout the first couple of hundred pages, you sense that something terrible is going to happen.

...Or not exactly. Rather, something terrible has happened, and is continuing to happen; and so the dreamlike atmosphere of Koko is not arbitrary at all, but a reflection of the fact that the novel is really about trauma- the way it distorts time and space, and becomes more real in the mind than anything experienced before or after. In his hotel in DC, still early on in the novel, Poole falls asleep, or half-asleep, trying to read The Dead Zone by Stephen King, which was published in 1979:

Before Michael could turn off his light, he was dripping with sweat, carrying his copy of The Dead Zone through an army base many times larger than Camp Crandall. All around the camp, twenty or thirty kilometers beyond the barbed-wire perimeter, stood hills once thickly covered by trees, now so perfectly bombed and burned and defoliated that only charred sticks protruded upwards from powdery brown earth. He walked past a row of tents and at last heard the silence of the camp- he was alone...He trudged past the deserted building into a stretch of empty land and smelled burning shit. The camp had been abandoned, and he had been left behind...then he knew that this was no dream, he really was in Vietnam- the rest of his life was the dream...

Wait a second, he thought, if this is reality it's no later than 1969. He opened The Dead Zone to the page of publishing information. Deep in his chest, his heart deflated...the copyright date was 1965. He had never left Vietnam. Everything since had been only a nineteen year-old's wishful dream.

...more

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Mar 15, 2018 Cody | CodysBookshelf rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: vintage-horror, favorites, peter-straub

As is the case when I finish other Peter Straub novels, I closed Koko last night, speechless, aware that I had been, at least on a tiny level, transformed. As per usual with Straub, this book is an experience: light beach reading it is not.

Straub deals in and with psychology, tethering it to literary elements; like human psychology, his narratives and characters are puzzles that are not so easy to complete. It is best for one to take his or her time when reading Straub, and to not get overwhelm ...more

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May 24, 2020 Edward Lorn rated it it was ok

I'm only reviewing this so that, if I ever mistakenly pick this up again in the future, I will have a warning in place to steer me to something else instead.

I first read this as a stupid teenager and enjoyed it. The book starts off great but then meanders into an antiquated jumble of overwrought writing and cringe-worthy narration.

In the narration, which is omnicient at times, and not in dialogue or a character's thoughts:

"His yellow smile" to describe an Asian person's smile. I'm sure some will ...more

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May 10, 2014 Kirstin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Koko is absolutely brilliant! This book reads like a recollected nightmare and the twists and turns will leave you dizzy.

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Jul 23, 2011 James Renner rated it it was amazing

Found this novel staring at me from the shelf of a used book store about a year ago. I picked it up, saw it was a first edition, and decided I had nothing to lose at the discounted price of $2.50. As I walked it to the counter, a single playing card fell out of the middle of the book, where, I assume, someone had marked a page. Only later did I come to discover how disturbing an omen this was.

My only exposure to Peter Straub (excellent Slate interview here) before this book was through his colla Found this novel staring at me from the shelf of a used book store about a year ago. I picked it up, saw it was a first edition, and decided I had nothing to lose at the discounted price of $2.50. As I walked it to the counter, a single playing card fell out of the middle of the book, where, I assume, someone had marked a page. Only later did I come to discover how disturbing an omen this was.

My only exposure to Peter Straub (excellent Slate interview here) before this book was through his collaborations with Stephen King in the Talisman saga. I feel a little sad that I’ve found him only now. It’s been too long since I’ve fallen in love with a book. And I’m smitten with this one.

Koko is my favorite kind of story–a quest that brings together mismatched characters who would never befriend each other under normal circumstances. It’s a tale about adults coming together to face a demon they thought they left behind years ago. In this way, it reminds a bit of King’s IT, another great story that sticks with you. Three Vietnam veterans (a lawyer, a doctor and carpenter) reunite to track down a serial killer who they believe was part of their platoon during the war. This killer has been going around offing people connected to their unit and leaving a souvenir in their mouths–a regimental playing card with the word “Koko” written on it.

Like the best novels written in the 80′s and 90′s, it’s a big friggin book, clocking in at 560 pages. Long enough to get lost in the story of these men and their hunt for a killer.

Straub’s writing is wonderful. Through scenes of mundane human existence he explores universal themes of redemption, grace, the nature of evil and forgiveness. In this way, his narrative–often revolving around cooking and writing–reminded me of John Irving more than King. But he also understands suspense and horror like King. I have to say I’m also humbled by the recognition of the research Straub must have done for this book–half of which is set in Saigon and Bangkok and Vietnam–especially when I consider this was done in a world before the Internet.

In the end, Straub’s alter-ego reflects on listening to good jazz in a tent in Vietnam. “We heard fear dissolved by mastery,” he thinks. The book is about applying this thought to life. And it’s something I intend to do as much as I can. ...more

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Dec 12, 2011 S.B. Redstone rated it did not like it

No one could say that Peter Straub can't write a beautiful sentence or that his description of people and places isn't excellent. I love his usage of language. This is 562 pages long. But, what I have found with horror writers, they seem to have a need to prove that they are better writers, which is ridiculous, and begin to picture themselves as great literary figures. And that is what I feel happened in this book. After forty pages, I had no idea who the main character really is; I have bits an ...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Mark rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: dark-tales, thriller, war, 2017

This book is a chaotic story about the post Vietnam syndrome that has plagued so many of those who fought there. It does show that prolonged exposure of you men to situations of extreme violence and stress due to the constant promise of violence, does alter anybody his psyche.

I once spoke with somebody who served a year in Afghanistan under constant pressure and he admitted that he had a hard time conforming to the "normal"situations after returning to his home. He did recognize his own paranoia This book is a chaotic story about the post Vietnam syndrome that has plagued so many of those who fought there. It does show that prolonged exposure of you men to situations of extreme violence and stress due to the constant promise of violence, does alter anybody his psyche.

I once spoke with somebody who served a year in Afghanistan under constant pressure and he admitted that he had a hard time conforming to the "normal"situations after returning to his home. He did recognize his own paranoia and was always ready and when he felt it was needed far over the top violent response. He scared the people who loved him and it took him a long time to return to a "normalcy".

The Vietnam was a very violent conflict that was far from regular warfare but a new brand fought as guerrilla warriors, which has altered the face of warfare ever since.

The main characters in this novel are the surviving members of an unit that fought in Vietnam and were involved in some situation for which they were investigated as a possible war crime. Which we find out gradually which is one of the underlying tensions in the book because while you want to know what happened you really do not because you expect something horrific.
This is about men who share with each other because they recognize that only those who have been there can really feel the pain and grief. As the reunion goes underway their former commanding officer does show them something that really spooks them. One of their own is killing people in the Orient and leaving a calling card they all recognize : Koko.
Their reunion evolves in a trip back to Orient to find their former comrade and bring him home and get him help. They all have their reasons to go and not go, put their lives on hold, as if they where not to begin with. Their trip back to their youth does indeed give them clarity and insight in what they really might be doing. Littel do they know that as they travel East Koko is coming West finally wanting to end his search for clarity and peace.
The story is very well written and you really live with the characters, some less sympathetic than others. And the parts where we look into Koko are really terrifying and sad. It is a real tour-de-force by the excellent writer Peter Straub.

This book is a real good tale about post Vietnam syndrome as felt by the people that were there. The book is about searching themselves when they seemingly have lost themselves over there.

Like the first time I read this book I was really in awe and this doorstop of a book never overstays it welcome. It is a novel that is a thriller, horror, biography of a certain generation and so well written that it is hard to lay down even if it is necessary to take a breather from this novel now and then.

This is a must-read book when you like the subject and far different from the Deerhunter even if that book/movie carries some of the same themes.

You do yourself a favor in reading this brilliant book. ...more

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Aug 21, 2018 Tom A. rated it it was ok · review of another edition

A frustratingly complex examination of the nature of evil that is hampered by the author's peculiar style.

Koko is a lot of things all at once. It is a serial killer thriller that dwells on the damaging effects of the Vietnam War on the men that fought it. It is an examination of the roots of violence, where it comes from and how it affects different kinds of persons. It is also, as Laird Barron puts it, an “astonishing account of a descent into lunacy and depravity” (“Koko: Stalking Through the A frustratingly complex examination of the nature of evil that is hampered by the author's peculiar style.

Koko is a lot of things all at once. It is a serial killer thriller that dwells on the damaging effects of the Vietnam War on the men that fought it. It is an examination of the roots of violence, where it comes from and how it affects different kinds of persons. It is also, as Laird Barron puts it, an “astonishing account of a descent into lunacy and depravity” (“Koko: Stalking Through the Jungles of the Night”)

It is also a needlessly complex and frustrating novel about the nature of evil.

Koko is about four Vietnam veterans (Michael Poole, Tina Pumo, Harry Beevers, and Conor Linklater) who search for a serial killer who is murdering foreign journalists all across Asia. The killer in question has a peculiar post-mortem signature: the stuffing of the victim’s mouth with a playing card inscribed with the word “Koko”. Beevers, their former C. O. in Vietnam, believes that the killer used to be a member of their platoon. They suspect the killings to be the work of their former friend Tim Underhill, who is now a reportedly unhinged writer/novelist living in Southeast Asia. Unassuming and mysterious, Underhill is the perfect candidate to be this serial killer, not to mention the fact that he uses the tortured pasts of his former friends as inspiration for the characters in his novels. Underhill is a man who knows a lot about them, yet they cannot even begin to fathom how he ended up like that. But even if their suspicions are true, is Underhill really the primary cause of the killings? Is what transpired in Vietnam more than a decade ago in their lives the true catalyst for this current murder spree? Beevers and company try to search for these answers, and in the process, confront the darkness they have kept in their souls for too long.

Koko, at first glance, can be mistaken as a straight horror thriller; a military-themed version of Stephen King’s It. Reading the synopsis at the back of most editions, the plot seems to allude to some ancient Vietnamese demon unearthed by some American soldiers in a cave and somehow this demon is back. Readers expecting this to be the actual plot would have crash landed into a planet of extreme genre disappointment. But this does not bother me at all. Having read Straub’s In the Night Room (2004) earlier, I knew that he would not resort to such outlandish tactics that have characterized the majority of the horror novels during the genre’s boom in the ’80s. What Straub is interested in is deceptively intricate plotting, metafiction, and the blurring of lines between reality and fiction.

For the right stories, this style is actually scintillating and well suited (read In the Night Room), but for a sprawling “journey into the heart of darkness” thriller like Koko, it fails and derails what could have been a better paced-yet still profound- book. For all its ideas about the nature of violence and the thin line between state-sponsored killings and personal bloodlust, its narrative suffers from many unnecessary details and useless tangents that add nothing to these themes. I am aware that some of these details are necessary later in the unfolding of the plot but the majority of them are downright annoying and are begging to be edited out. As a result of such style, there is no immediacy to the proceedings at hand. There might be a highly skilled and dangerous serial killer on the loose with the capability to liquidate our main characters and their loved ones and friends, but we don’t feel that they care at all. If the characters act and feel that this relatively extreme situation is normal, why should we even care? I have seen more genuine concern in characters from Bizarro Novels.

Despite these criticisms, Koko is still a well-written book. Straub’s prose writing is excellent, being poetic and self-aware at the same time. With this style, Straub is able to describe realistic and mundane situations, switch back to describing the horrors of war and let us in on the deranged mind of Koko. It may bog down the narrative, but it is a writing feat nonetheless.

I have mentioned above the themes found in Koko and there have been many reviews and appreciative essays discussing those. But I would like to point out Grady Hendrix’s excellent piece found in the “Forgotten Bestsellers” section of his review page. Hendrix mentions that one of Straub’s themes in Koko is about “how America is a factory that manufactures violence against women, immigrants, outsiders, and children”. This is true when you consider the events that transpired that led to the creation of the killer in Koko, but it does not explain the extreme cruelty and apathy that the American characters encounter in Southeast Asia during their hunt. The perpetrators in the infamous underground garage scene are definitely not American, and it just goes to prove that the nature and origin of evil and violence cannot be localized anywhere; it is disturbingly universal.

Overall, I did not enjoy this book like a typical horror novel but it was certainly very interesting and could have used a little more judicious editing. For all my criticism, nobody can take away Straub’s literary prowess and the clout that his name brings. That being said, with Straub’s name on the cover, I was expecting to like it a little bit more. ...more

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Jan 10, 2019 Bill rated it really liked it · review of another edition

When Straub is on his game there are few writers that can pen a story like he can.

Koko, while meandering in several places with a few dead-end story lines, still manages to be a skillfully written and engaging thriller.

The boys are getting back together to go after one of their own who has slid off the rails and gone on a killing spree. They need to find him and get him some help. Well…cash in on the story of how they caught him is more like it. Either way, he is one of their own and they need ...more

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Apr 09, 2017 Liz rated it liked it · review of another edition

Will put my thoughts together at a later date when I have more time. This was another group read that took a long time to get through, but that's not a reflection on the quality of the book - life just got in the way a lot!

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May 16, 2018 The Face of Your Father rated it really liked it

1988’s dark examination of PTSD.

‘Koko' is a novel centered on a group of Vietnam soldiers more than a decade after the war. The terrors explored within this novel are especially cutting as they focus on the all too true atrocities of war. The characters are definitely the strongest point of this novel, the bond (and sometimes hatred) between them is felt as it oozes from the page. It is criminal to not bring up Straub's clever and brilliant writing; the point-of-view chapters narrated by a hallu ...more

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Dec 04, 2014 Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!} marked it as did-not-finish · review of another edition

Shelves: boring-zzzz, abandoned

DNF @ Pg 121: I'm having such a hard time focusing on this book when I'm reading it. I find Straub's writing,on his own, really dry. *Sighs* I also really like the anthologies he has edited/complied. *feels like a loser with an unpopular opinion*

I feel really bad, but I will read 20 pages and space out, re-read them, and nothing registers that much. This rarely happens to me. I did really try, but I just feel like I'm just draaaaaging this one along.

I hope other people really like it though. I ...more

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Apr 02, 2017 Josen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-library

Review to come......not even sure where to start with this one, lol!

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Aug 17, 2009 Julie Failla Earhart rated it it was ok

Peter Straub is considered one of the greatest thriller writers of our time; second only perhaps to the master Stephen King. Yet, somehow I missed never reading anything by Straub. When Anchor Books re-released Koko, the first book in the “Blue Rose Trilogy,” I jumped at the chance to review it.
The Washington Post claimed that the 1988 work was “brilliantly written…an inspired thriller…(Straub’s) finest work.” I was ready, eager, anxious, and waiting when the almost six-hundred-page paperback la ...more

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Mar 29, 2020 Ashley Daviau rated it did not like it · review of another edition

DNF - I’ve come to the conclusion the Peter Straub is just not for me. He’s clearly an old white man writing stories for other old white men, not my bag!

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Jan 19, 2017 Benoit Lelièvre rated it liked it · review of another edition

I hate to be a dick here but the perceived value of having been written by Peter Straub seems to have carried a competent, yet otherwise dated and overweight thriller for close to thirty years now. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like about KOKO. It has a lot to say about war, PTSD and the meaninglessness of murder, but there is material that sprawls over pages of this book that haven't aged all that well. The countercultural tour of Southeast Asia among others have been done to death since ...more

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Oct 20, 2009 Kate rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: age-adult, 1993-to-1997, dnf

I know I tried to read this book... It had something to do with the Vietnam War, but I never found out what "Koko" meant and I couldn't shake the idea that it was about a gorilla...

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Jul 03, 2012 Ethan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: horror

Totally and utterly amazing. I bought this book for two reasons: it was written by the co-author of The Talisman, and it was a hardcover book in good condition that cost me $1.00.
This was the first book by Peter Straub that I read, and it absolutely blew me away. While this book is not exactly a horror story, it does have spine-tingling moments. One public opinion I resent is that horror fiction has to involve supernatural occurrences, but in this case I have to agree. This book does not incorp ...more

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Apr 19, 2017 Jim C rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is the start of a trilogy. In this one, members of a Vietnam unit come together in search of one of their own. They believe that the person they are looking for is committing murders and leaving a card with the word "Koko" written on it. They also believe this ties in within an incident that happened in Vietnam during the war.

I would classify this book as a mystery book within a psychological thriller. It is also one of the darkest books I have read. It delves into child abuse, killing of i ...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Chris Brown rated it did not like it

I presume the only reason this book made the best seller lists was due to the public's fascination with psychotic Vietnam war vets. Not only is it boring, the character actions are completely stupid ("Here's a great idea, the killer is isolated in a basement completely unaware that several precints worth of police are blanketing his neighborhood looking for him. No, lets not notify the police, lets openly enter the basement unarmed in order to reason with him. Oh no! He escaped using us as hosta ...more

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Apr 18, 2019 Espen Aukan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This was a tough read, very hard to get through. But in the end it was worth it. It was slow, detailed, tough language. Straub is demanding, like jazz. But as hard as it was I always wanted to pick it up again, to read on, to find out what tragedies and mysteries were ahead.

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Oct 20, 2014 Duncan Ralston rated it liked it

Long-winded but worth the read.
He could have told the same story, shortened by about 200 pages. I love stories about Vietnam and PTSD so this still resonated.

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Nov 22, 2019 Tim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is the first in a loosely-related trilogy (I already read “The Throat” several years ago [see my review], but only afterward did I realize it was part of a larger opus). “KOKO” is a combination horror/mystery work, involving five former members of an infantry squad in Vietnam, who come together for a reunion at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. In Vietnam, they had participated in atrocities in a small village, Ia Thuc, which has haunted them all since. Currently (in the early 1980’s), they This is the first in a loosely-related trilogy (I already read “The Throat” several years ago [see my review], but only afterward did I realize it was part of a larger opus). “KOKO” is a combination horror/mystery work, involving five former members of an infantry squad in Vietnam, who come together for a reunion at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. In Vietnam, they had participated in atrocities in a small village, Ia Thuc, which has haunted them all since. Currently (in the early 1980’s), they are living disparate lives in different geographical locations: Tim Underhill, a successful novelist of what he terms the “Blue Rose Mysteries” (after which this trilogy is named), because the murderer leaves a blue rose as his “calling card” at the scenes of his crimes, is living in Singapore. Michael Poole is a pediatrician whose marriage has been very stressed since the death of his 11-year-old son from cancer. Conor Linklater is a construction worker/contractor. “Tina” Pumo is a chef for a Vietnamese restaurant called Singapore. Harry Beevers, the squad’s leader (and not a very good one) is an egotistical, ambition=us lawyer. Two other members of the squad, Victor Spitalny and M. O. Dengler, had been in Bangkok on R&R when Dengler was killed and Spitlany had gone AWOL and disappeared and hasn’t been heard of since.
The men become aware of a person called KOKO, who has murdered the French journalists who had accompanied the Ia Thuc mission, and has more recently begun killing members of the squad. The murders are particularly grisly, with eyes and ears removed and a playing card with the word “KOKO” printed on it left at the scenes of the murders. Because of the similarity to the “Blue Rose” murders, the men assume that Tim Underhill is the murderer and Harry suggests they join forces to find him in Singapore. They are joined by Maggie Lah, Tina’s girlfriend and granddaughter of the restaurant’s owner, a former Vietnamese general who had raised Maggie. Their journey takes them to Singapore, Bangkok, Milwaukee (Spitalny’s home town) and then back to New York, attempting to trace down KOKO.
That’s about the bare bones of the story, which is a multi-layered whodunit mixed with the trauma of war (and other traumas), complex personality studies and relationships, flashbacks to a violent and controversial time in our history, and the seamy underside of Asian clubs in which sex, drugs and murder are intertwined. Oh yeah, there’s also a budding romance, can’t forget that. Interestingly, the various parts of the book are presented on a single page with title of the part on a respective playing card (e.g., Part 3 is on a Three of a suit), keeping the theme constant. Here’s another little entertaining part: Towards the end of the book one of the characters refers to two renditions of a song called “KoKo;” one is by Duke Ellington and the other, quite a bit more abstract, is by Charlie Parker, though they are somewhat connected. Go on YouTube and give ‘em a listen.
As with “The Throat,” I very much enjoyed this book and would recommend it highly and give it Five Stars, although I must admit I figured out the twist sooner than the author might have intended. Looking forward to reading the second volume, “Mystery,” but I gotta take a break before doing so; these novels are long and dense.
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About Peter Straub

Peter Straub

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Peter Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 2 March, 1943, the first of three sons of a salesman and a nurse. The salesman wanted him to become an athlete, the nurse thought he would do well as either a doctor or a Lutheran minister, but all he wanted to do was to learn to read.

When kindergarten turned out to be a stupefyingly banal disappointment devoted to cutting animal shapes out of heavy Peter Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 2 March, 1943, the first of three sons of a salesman and a nurse. The salesman wanted him to become an athlete, the nurse thought he would do well as either a doctor or a Lutheran minister, but all he wanted to do was to learn to read.

When kindergarten turned out to be a stupefyingly banal disappointment devoted to cutting animal shapes out of heavy colored paper, he took matters into his own hands and taught himself to read by memorizing his comic books and reciting them over and over to other neighborhood children on the front steps until he could recognize the words. Therefore, when he finally got to first grade to find everyone else laboring over the imbecile adventures of Dick, Jane and Spot (“See Spot run. See, see, see,”), he ransacked the library in search of pirates, soldiers, detectives, spies, criminals, and other colorful souls, Soon he had earned a reputation as an ace storyteller, in demand around campfires and in back yards on summer evenings.

This career as the John Buchan to the first grade was interrupted by a collision between himself and an automobile which resulted in a classic near-death experience, many broken bones, surgical operations, a year out of school, a lengthy tenure in a wheelchair, and certain emotional quirks. Once back on his feet, he quickly acquired a severe stutter which plagued him into his twenties and now and then still puts in a nostalgic appearance, usually to the amusement of telephone operators and shop clerks. Because he had learned prematurely that the world was dangerous, he was jumpy, restless, hugely garrulous in spite of his stutter, physically uncomfortable and, at least until he began writing horror three decades later, prone to nightmares. Books took him out of himself, so he read even more than earlier, a youthful habit immeasurably valuable to any writer. And his storytelling, for in spite of everything he was still a sociable child with a lot of friends, took a turn toward the dark and the garish, toward the ghoulish and the violent. He found his first “effect” when he discovered that he could make this kind of thing funny.

As if scripted, the rest of life followed. He went on scholarship to Milwaukee Country Day School and was the darling of his English teachers. He discovered Thomas Wolfe and Jack Kerouac, patron saints of wounded and self-conscious adolescence, and also, blessedly, jazz music, which spoke of utterance beyond any constraint: passion and liberation in the form of speech on the far side of the verbal border. The alto saxophone player Paul Desmond, speaking in the voice of a witty and inspired angel, epitomized ideal expressiveness, Our boy still had no idea why inspired speech spoke best when it spoke in code, the simultaneous terror and ecstasy of his ancient trauma, as well as its lifelong (so far, anyhow) legacy of anger, being so deeply embedded in the self as to be imperceptible, Did he behave badly, now and then? Did he wish to shock, annoy, disturb, and provoke? Are you kidding? Did he also wish to excel, to keep panic and uncertainty at arm's length by good old main force effort? Make a guess. So here we have a pure but unsteady case of denial happily able to maintain itself through merciless effort. Booted along by invisible fears and horrors, this fellow was rewarded by wonderful grades and a vague sense of a mysterious but transcendent wholeness available through expression. He went to the University of Wisconsin and, after opening his eyes to the various joys of Henry James, William Carlos Williams, and the Texas blues-rocker Steve Miller, a great & joyous character who lived across the street, passed through essentially unchanged to emerge in 1965 with an honors degree in English, then an MA at Columbia a year later. He thought actual writing was probably beyond him even though actual writing was probably what he was best at - down crammed he many and many a book, stirred by ...more