I love books that contain a bunch of short stories! These are not easy to find, particularly books that contain short stories all by the same author. It seems that in order to get a publisher to let you do a book full of short stories, you must first become a famous, money making, author. Otherwise, your short stories are destined to become part of an anthology with a whole group of less well known, (or completely unknown) authors, or in some of the literary magazines that print short stories. The less lucky authors of short stories will end up with their stories in a box in their closet, or, taking up space on their computers. Koontz includes at the end of the book a little note (of sorts) for readers, describing his own experiences trying to get his short stories published.

The title of the book “Strange Highways” comes from the very first story in the book. It is one of the longer short stories in this collection. Joey Shannon, a forty year old alcoholic, goes back to his hometown to make arrangements for his father’s funeral. He thinks back to all the times he disappointed his father, and his mother, and drinks some more. He thinks about his amazingly successful older brother, P.J., who has become a famous writer, traveling the globe, and sending money back to his father. Much is said about the funeral, about how the other people in the town also disapprove of Joey, and how badly his drinking has affected him. I found the first part of this story so dark and depressing that I seriously considered giving up and moving on to the next story.

The story got better, (but remained dark). Joey starts “seeing” a dead woman, who is reaching out to him. No one else can see this woman, and so, Joey assumes he is hallucinating. On the way out of town, Joey sees a road that should not exist, because the town removed it years ago. The houses located beyond the road were located on a fault line, of sorts, and ended up being torn down as well. He thinks back to a fateful night when he was back in high school, and something P.J. convinced him to keep secret. This road that should not be, this “strange highway” turns out to be Joey’s salvation. He gets transported back in time, to that very important night, and given the chance to make things right. The rest of the story is a combination of an incredibly suspenseful chase between the two brothers, and a whole lot of Christian symbols and iconography. Not my favorite story in the book, by far, but, a good read nonetheless.

There are a total of fourteen stories in this collection, all of which are dark, scary, and creepy in a number of ways. My overall impression after reading all the stories is that there was an underlying theme of “you get what you deserve”. The evil are punished, or, at least stopped in some way. Bad actions reap bad consequences. The innocent are saved, rescued, or rewarded in some way. If you happen to be angry at someone, this book will serve as a virtual way to exact revenge on that person, as you harmlessly substitute them for one of the evil characters.

My absolute favorite story is the second one, called “The Black Pumpkin”. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and so, this story caught my attention right away. Tommy, an eleven year old, visits one of those places selling pumpkins under a tent around Halloween. He goes with his father, and his slightly older brother, Frank. An old, extremely creepy man sits towards the back, surrounded by the pumpkins he has hand carved and decorated. Frank becomes enamored with a large, black pumpkin that is misshapen, has wart like growths, and sharp teeth. The old man says that people are to pay for his pumpkins the same as the not yet carved ones, and “only give me what you wish, you get what you give”. Ominous! Frank, being the nasty kid he is, gives the old many only a nickel. Tommy goes home terrified about what will happen that night, what the pumpkin will do. The old man gives him a warning, of sorts, but that doesn’t make things easier. Freaky story, with an element of Grimm’s fairy tales in it. My favorite, by far!

“Miss Attila the Hun” is a story about alien abduction (in a particularly gruesome way), and a tough teacher who tries to save the town.

“Down in the Darkness” made me cringe the entire time I was reading it! Recent immigrant finally saves up enough to buy his family a big house. The house comes with a door to a basement that only he can see, and the basement contains something horrible, that wants to be fed. There are some real world elements in this story that just make me sick to my stomach, because Koonts references some horrible things that really did happen to some people.

“We Three” and “Kittens” involve children, who are attempting (in very different ways), to punish the adults in charge of them for the perceived mistreatment they children believe they have received from said adults. These are some of the shortest stories in the book, and both gave me chills, which continue as I write this and think about each story. If you are going to read only one story in this collection, it should be one of these two. You won’t be disappointed.

There is one story that gives the reader some comic relief, but still manages to be scary. “Bruno” is about a detective, who finds a man-bear that appears in his living room. Bruno is from some other dimension, tracking a bad guy, and the main character, who happens to be a detective, decides to help him. All sorts of interesting information spills out about the differences between Bruno’s world, and ours. Wait until you read who made Bruno’s gun! Fans of Simon Green will like this story best.

There are a few more stories in this collection that I didn’t even mention, for you to discover on your own.

I was rather disappointed with this one.

This book was first published in 1980, and, to me, it hasn’t aged well. Bands in bars are playing songs by Billy Joel. Police are using land lines at the scene of the crime to call in information to headquarters. A famous agent uses a phone at a posh restaurant that was brought out to him, and puts down the receiver when his client arrives. The killer searches for an actual phone booth to make a call from, and is disappointed when all he can find is one of those phones with a small plastic screen surrounding it instead. The main character wants to know what her date thinks of the television show “Mork and Mindy”. All the clothing mentioned, as well as the way most of the settings are styled, are hopelessly stuck in time.

These small details kept jarring me out of the story, sticking out as something very wrong. The parts where the killer was chasing after the other characters, I kept thinking “Well, why doesn’t she just use her cell phone to call the police?”. Maybe I’m just not ready to think of a story taking place in the 1980’s as a “period piece” yet.

The story takes a good long time to get where it is trying to go. First, the reader is introduced to the bad guy, Bruno Frye. He sits in a restaurant, eating an ungodly huge amount of food, and thinking about exactly how he’d like to kill the waitress.

Then it jumps to a bit about the heroine, Hilary (a name I cannot read today without immediately thinking of Hilary Clinton and her upcoming election campaign), who is a newly rich screenplay writer. She is the stereotypical formerly abused kid from inner city Chicago that grew up and “made it”. She now lives in a big house in California, but is still haunted by the demons of what she endured as a child. Granted, it was pretty bad, but it just comes across so…. I don’t know… “After School Special”. Hillary is also fighting to be a success as a screenwriter, and having difficulty because she is a woman. That part feels so very outdated as I read it now, in 2007.

Then the book jumps to Tony, the hero of the story, a detective who really would rather be an artist. He’s just too afraid to make that jump. He is another walking stereotype, and it’s clear right away that Hilary and Tony will meet and fall in love. It takes forever to get there, and you get to sift through a lot of “but how can I trust you, after the abuse I suffered through?” stuff. It’s no suprize when they finally do get together, because it was so blatantly telegraphed in the preceding story. The love scenes are poorly written, and made me cringe more than some of the scenes where people were getting stabbed and killed. Ick!

Bruno, of course, attacks Hillary and tries to kill her. He thinks she is his dead mother, Katherine, back from the dead. She survives, and when he comes back to try a second attempt, Hillary ends up killing him. So many pages are spent detailing exactly what happened to Bruno’s body. Where it was found, what hospital it went to, where the autopsy was done, which funeral home prepared it for the funeral, etc. etc. It’s a big neon sign flashing on and off that says “This guy is coming back from the dead.” I wasn’t surprised when Bruno seemed to return from the grave.

This book leaves a lot of important details hanging until the very end. There is a whole other story line the reader slowly and painfully discovers bit by bit as you dig through the story about what happened to Bruno when he was a child, and what happened to his mother as a child. Some attempt is made to feel sorry for this homicidal maniac, because he was also an abused child. Hillary feels sorry for him, reflecting on her own terrible childhood, which to me, felt very fake. This is a guy that tried to kill her more than once, and was a serial killer for years and years, claiming many victims. Who could empathize with that?

Anyway, in short, I didn’t really enjoy this book. It feels very dated, it takes forever to get where it was going, and it throws together at the end what could have been a much more interesting story if it was more developed. The characters are flat, and the story line tends to signal ahead of time way too much of the events before they happen. Just wasn’t scary enough for me.

If you like Koontz, do yourself a favor, and read The Husband instead. It just came out in paperback, and is ever so much better than Whispers was.

Click here to read my review of The Husband by Koontz.

Mitch is a gardener. One day, out of the blue, someone kidnaps his wife, calls Mitch on his cell phone, and demands a ransom of $2 million, cash, in what seems like an impossibly short span of time. At first glance, this sounds like a plot line I have heard before, in several other books, and quite a few movies as well, for that matter. The title didn’t inspire me much either. I mean, The Husband? That’s not a scary title! That sounds more like a title for a romance book! C’mon, Koontz! Have you run out of ideas? I wasn’t looking forward to reading this one.

To my surprise, Koontz had me at the first chapter. I am amazed at how much I enjoyed this book! Each chapter is short, (only a few pages), and every chapter has some twisted surprises hiding inside it, just waiting for the reader to trip over them. At the end of every chapter, I wanted more. What happens next? What does Mitch do, now that this incredibly bad unexpected thing has happened? How is he going to get his wife back, with this new setback in his way? It’s like crack for readers, and I considered calling in sick to work one day just so I could stay home, read more, and find out what happens!

So, overlook the tame sounding title, the story line you think you know, and give this book a read! This book is a thriller, and I highly recommend it. It would make for a spectacular summer read for those of you on vacation with some extra free time on your hands. Those of you stuck working like I am will be just at tempted to take a sick day and finish off this book!