Breathless: A Novel of Suspense

"In the stillness of a golden September afternoon, deep in the wilderness of the Rockies, a solitary craftsman, Grady Adams, and his magnificent Irish wolfhound Merlin step from shadow into light ... and into an encounter with enchantment. That night, through the trees, under the moon, a pair of singular animals will watch Grady's isolated home, waiting to make their approach." "A few miles away, Camillia Rivers, a local veterinarian, begins to unravel the threads of a puzzle that will bring all the forces of a government in peril to her door." At a nearby farm, long-estranged identical twins come together to begin a descent into darkness ... In Las Vegas, a specialist in chaos theory probes the boundaries of the unknowable ... On a Seattle golf course, two men make matter-of-fact arrangements for murder ... Along a highway by the sea, a vagrant scarred by the past begins a trek toward his destiny.

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Koontz (Relentless) delivers a hard-to-classify stand-alone set near the Rocky Mountains that will appeal more to fans of his Odd Thomas books than those partial to his Hitchcockian thrillers. While out for a walk, reclusive Grady Adams and his wolfhound, Merlin, spot two white furry animals “as large as midsize dogs” and “as quick and limber as cats” that aren't like anything previously known to science. The sudden arrival of these mysterious creatures out of the blue appears to be linked to several other baffling phenomena. Meanwhile, a sadist, Henry Rouvroy, tracks down his identical twin, James, and kills him and James's wife in order to assume his brother's identity. After the murders, Rouvroy is unsettled by evidence that the dead have not stayed dead. Koontz's cryptic dedication to Aesop (“twenty-six centuries late and with apologies for the length”) may hold the key to what's going on, but readers are likely to find the moral of this peculiar tale, if there is one, obscure. (Dec.)