Life Expectancy
With his bestselling blend of nail-biting intensity, daring artistry,
and storytelling magic, Dean Koontz returns with an emotional roller
coaster of a tale filled with enough twists, turns, shocks, and
surprises for ten ordinary novels. Here is the story of five days in
the life of an ordinary man born to an extraordinary legacy - a story
that will challenge the way you look at good and evil, life and death,
and everything in between.
Jimmy Tock comes into the world on
the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages
outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors
between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's
bedside. It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very
height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and
speaks coherently for the frist and last time since his stroke.
What
he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life
of his grandson - five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to
prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year;
the second in his twent-third year; the third in his twenty-eighth; the
fourth in his twenty-ninth; the fifth in his thirtieth.
Rudy is
all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's
delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted
the time of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact
height and weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with
syndactyly - the unexplained anomal of fused digits - on his left foot.
Suddenly the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance.
What
terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What nightmares
will he face? What challenges must he survive? As the novel unfolds,
picking up Jimmy's story at each of these crisis points, the path he
must follow will defy every expectation. And with each crisis he faces,
he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. For who
Jimmy Tock is and what he must accomplish on the five days when his
world turns is a mystery as dangerous as it is wondrous - a struggle
against an evil so dark and pervasive, only the most extraordinary of
human spirits can shine through.
Dean Koontz
Acknowledged as "America's most popular suspense novelist" (Rolling Stone) and as one of today's most celebrated and successful writers, Dean Ray Koontz has earned the devotion of millions of readers around the world and the praise of critics everywhere for tales of character, mystery, and adventure that strike to the core of what it means to be human.
Dean, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Elsa, and the enduring spirit of their goldens, Trixie and Anna.