Saundra

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819 the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with 20 crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than 90 days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, and disease and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.

With each and every new novel, Dean Koontz raises the stakes—and the pulse rate—higher than any other author. Now, in what may be his most suspenseful and heartfelt novel ever, he brings us the story of an ordinary man whose extraordinary commitment to his wife will take him on a harrowing journey of adventure, sacrifice, and redemption to the mystery of love itself—and to a showdown with the darkness that would destroy it forever.

Vietnam vet Brian Hanson is in recovery from drug abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder. He's turned his life around, working as a therapist with some of Portland, Oregon's, most troubled citizens. When one of his clients relays a dramatic, paranoid story, it's easy to be dismissive. But when she dies under suspicious circumstances, Hanson is drawn into her world, the seedy underside of Portland. Was she the target of a serial killer, or of a conspiracy?