Cover Image: The Silent Corner

The Silent Corner

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Always a Dean Koontz fan, this book did not disappoint. I found it to be a bit different than most of his books I have read but his wonderful use of imagery and intrigue remained. You'll find your self questioning at what lengths would you go to protect the ones you love. I spent several nights in a row up reading far later into the night than I planned. If I had anything negative to say about this book it is that it really does not end but rather sets you up for the next book of the same characters.

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Once again, the Maestro has cast his web upon the universe and we are drawn in to his amazingly imaginative world.

Dean Koontz has always been one of my favorite authors. This book reaffirms why I love Dean Koontz books. This is not his typical horror/supernatural thriller, but this book definitely lives up to his top notch standard.

The Silent Corner introduces his new series featuring Jane Hawk, an FBI agent. This is one bad ass chick! Her character and charisma jump off the pages. Her character and this series (the Jane Hawk series) is going to keep me awake nights – reading! I believe there are going to be 3 books in this series. I am ecstatic that I already have the 2nd book, “The Whispering Room”, in my library!

Like every Dean Koontz book I have ever read – I could not put it down. This is a seasoned author who knows how to draw you in from page 1. The book kept me on the edge of my chair, heart pounding and my mind racing for the next page. For anyone who thought “Oh, another FBI/Government conspiracy book, not my kind of book” … don't forget THIS FBI book was written by Dean Koontz!

FBI agent Jane Hawks is on leave after the death of her husband 6 months ago. His death was ruled a suicide.
Even though Jane can't deny that he committed this act – she KNOWS, something is very, very wrong.

Jane has been doing research after her husband's unusual suicide. What she discovers is an alarming increase in the U.S. Suicide rate and all of them are unusual. None fit the statistics. The rate doubled in the past year, and doubled again in the past 3 months. They're all successful, well-adjusted people with no history of depression, emotional problems, or even financial problems. They are all either military or professional people. What Jane has stumbled upon is nothing less than a pandemic of corruption! She suspects some really big people, possibly even the US government is involved, and they are very serious about stopping Jane in her investigation.

This book is full of kick ass action, heart pounding suspense and with the ever present imagination of the author – hang on for the ride. Koontz will take you where you've never been.

My only suggestion – have book 2 “The Whispering Room” in your library for when you Finnish book 1!
(I don't think book 3 has been published yet)

Thank you to the author, the publisher, Bantam, and netgalley for allowing me to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. My review will be posted on amazon, goodreads, netgalley and moonshineartspot.blogspot

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Very engaging and scarey

The scariest part of this story is that it could happen in the future -- it is shockingly realistic. Jane, the main character, investigates her husband's "Suicide" and creates some very dangerous enemies.

This is very well written intense story with a very strong female lead character. I can't wait for the remaining 2 books in this trilogy!

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Jane Hawk's husband has committed suicide, but she doesn't believe it. She is an FBI agent and her husband was in the military and they seemed to be a happy couple. Of course, there is a nefarious reason why he killed himself and Jane goes on the hunt to find out what happened.

This novel is a little bit science fiction-y, so it is a novel that is not really in my wheelhouse; however, I enjoyed it and looking forward to the second novel, The Whispering Room.

I will say that if you read this as a stand alone book, you will be disappointed as this book did not have a resolution at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley for the Advanced Copy!

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I was a little surprised by "Silent Corner". Koontz is a master of drawing out suspense and that is till the case, but this piece felt over worked. The ease of pace that I'm accustomed to was simply not there and the characters ached for more dimension. I'll be interested to see if these will be remedied in "The Whispering Room".

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Great pace. Easy to pick up, hard to put down. The characters are strong and relatable. They spark the story!

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A new Dean Koontz that doesn't rely on the supernatural, and has a female protagonist is a real treat! Readers will be pleased to find that a sequel is in the works.

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The Silent Corner showcases a more mature and refined Dean Koontz who was already one of the most gifted fiction writers alive. Like other Koontz books, the pace is hyperfast, the characters are authentic and the plot is riveting. Former FBI agent Jane Hawk is on a mission to avenge the mysterious death of her husband while protecting her son from a shadowy organization operating outside of the law.

Koontz does a masterful job of weaving an intricate story without losing the reader in an endless web of mundane storytelling. It's one of his best books yet. Sure to please both his long-time fans and those who may be new to his work.

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I really enjoyed the pace of this book. Almost every chapter ended with a cliff-hanger which made me want to keep reading. The chapters are also on the shorter side which makes it a little easier to read a lot in one sitting. Jane Hawk is one of my favorite Koontz characters now. (She could never beat out Odd Thomas though, my absolute fave!) It's always nice to have a heroine in a story that does some ass-kicking instead of sitting back and waiting for someone to save her.

Dean Koontz always does an awesome job of scaring the crap out of you psychological without necessarily using any gore, and he doesn't fail to do that with this book either. While the concept is not necessarily anything new (again, I won't post any spoilers!), Koontz does a fantastic job of incorporating current events into his novel which make the concept all the more believable. I shuddered while reading some parts because it's not too unbelievable to think that there might be people out there that can actually do the things described in this book.

Reader Beware! This is book 1 of the series and it does end with a cliff hanger, so do not read this if you do not intend to read the next book in the series (due in November), as you will be left hanging!

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"Those who are truly off the grid and cannot be tracked by any technology, yet are able to move about freely and use the Internet, are said to be in the SILENT CORNER."

Jane Hawk is an FBI agent and a recent widow. Her husband inexplicably committed suicide. Coming to terms with his death, Jane finds that the amount of suicides has drastically increased. And there are other strange behaviors that stand out even as terrorist attacks and other demonstrations of man's inhumity to man increase. She sets out on a rogue mission -- one woman determined to find out the truth even as she is pursued by the FBI and other agencies who think she's gone to the dark side. What she finds is enough to strike terror into every human being on the planet.

A blend of suspense thriller and science fiction, this is one great action-packed ride. Jane's character, and those of the others in this novel, are fairly sterotypical of this genre. The book is fast-paced except for the excessive verbosity and seemingly endless use of simile and metaphor typical of every Dean Koontz book!

Dean Koontz introduced me to the world of the thriller and I've read so many of them -- some I loved, some not so much. He always has interesting and, with a stretch of imaginaion -- nearly wholly believeable themes and topics. This was a good book for me and I really enjoyed it. I have the next in the trilogy (THE WHISPERING ROOM) to start immediately. That's a good thing because this one sort of ends on a cliffhanger with much unfinished business. I recommend it.

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Classic Koontz is back in a big way, and with him is Jane Hawk. I've been a very long time fan of Dean's work, but over the last decade, it felt like Dean was phoning in his novels. With Silent Corner, Dean digs deep and bestows upon us a classic work, comparable to his work in the 90s that his die-hard fans loved. My faith in Dean has been restored and I am truly excited to read his next book. I haven't felt that way in a long time.

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Imagine your successful husband commits suicide and it makes no sense. He was not suffering from depression and yet, he had a driving need to be dead....to no longer exist. His widow, Jane Hawk has worked for the FBI and she notices a large number of people committing suicide. Like her husband's suicide, they do not make sense either. Jane becomes equally driven and it's to find out why her husband and so many others are killing themselves when they seemingly led happy, fulfilling lives. She is a character that one has to admire. She has guts and courage and she's smart.
I was highly impressed with this novel of Dean Koontz's. He makes the reader feel a great need to know what's causing such sorrow. Finding out what led to the suicides keeps the reader on the edge of their seats. You won't want to put this book down for a minute! So I recommend reading this one when you have a large amount of free time.
I am rating this book 5 stars and I highly recommend it to readers.
I received an ebook of this novel from netgalley and Bantam Publishing with request to write an honest review.

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I remember when Dean Koontz said he wasn't a fan of writing books in a series.

That seems to have gone out the window ever since he dove into the Odd Thomas affair.

The Silent Corner begins a new series with a female lead.

Without giving much of anything away as far as plot, this book is bizarre. I know that's not some mind-blowing revelation about a Koontz book but, seriously, I kept shaking my head as I read this because it was just so odd.

The story is quite taunt. It keeps you guessing and going and wondering, "what in the world is going on"

Dean Koontz does some fantastic work and this one absolutely stacks up with some of his better offerings.

Here's the kicker: even though some of the technology used in this book is a bit out there...it is absolutely conceivable that we will see some variations in the very near future - if it isn't already out there.

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Bantam Publishing.

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I had only read one other book by Mr. Koontz, “Ashley Bell”, which I thought was pretty good. When I heard that he had a new female protaganist in “The Silent Corner”, I thought I’d give it a try.

Jane Hawk is an FBI agent on leave after the death/suicide of her husband. After much research Jane is convinced that someone is killing people by somehow “implanting” the idea of suicide into their brains. She knew that her husband had been happy and had shown no signs of being depressed, etc. and the suicide just didn’t fit.

Jane goes on the run after researching and trying to get in touch with ten or so grieving partners of people who committed suicide recently, none of which had shown any signs of being unhappy with their life, jobs, etc. She begins to learn that there is a connection but the closer she gets to the answer, the more she is chased by “the bad guys”. So essentially this is a conspiracy story.

The majority of the book is just having us follow Jane as she runs from one state, city, place to another while interviewing families of people who committed suicide. There isn’t much to really interest me in Jane’s character. We see a little bit of who she is when she visits her son, but those are such short bursts of the story that I didn’t really show me much of Jane’s character outside of who she was as an FBI agent.

Maybe I just don’t like series books. I like an ending to my novels, in this one we are left hanging for the resolution to come perhaps in the next installment of Jane Hawk books which is “The Whispering Room”. If you love Koontz you may enjoy this new series. The writing is decent but I wouldn’t call it great and the characters are pretty flat.

I received a copy of this ARC from the publisher and NetGalley. I would really rate this more a 2 1/2 if I could.

Also posted to Amazon.

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Dean Koontz's new series is awesome. His new character, Jane Hawk, is an FBI agent who has been forced to go rogue. She has stumbled on to a devastating and frightening evil. This evil uses mind control biotechnology to influence people to commit murder and suicide inciting a genocide of sorts. Jane's husband was one of the people that commit suicide and now she and her son are being threatened with death if she doesn't stop her investigation into the increasing suicide deaths. Even her most trusted colleagues are falling under this evil mind control that is working against her. Jane is morphing into a Superhero. She can not stop her mission to expose this evil plot but there is no one she can trust to help her. The novel leaves you wanting more and waiting anxiously to grab the next installment in the series.

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Jane Hawk: Proud patriot, loyal friend, fierce protector... Grieving widow, presumed-rogue FBI agent, branded fugitive.

Jane Hawk is intelligent and savvy. Some would say way too much for her own good. But she knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that her husband did NOT commit suicide. She is not merely paranoid or just reaching for other explanations in the midst of her deep grief. She's done her research. She's seen the evidence of the significant climb in current suicide rates. A red flag is raised, when she discovers that, like her husband, a large number of these recent suicides were by seemingly very happy people who displayed absolutely no signs or symptoms of depression or distress.

Jane is convinced, more than ever, that her husband was murdered in cold blood, because he knew too much. What exactly he knew too much about is what Jane is in a race against time to find out. And, if she doesn't find answers, quickly, she could be the next "suicide" statistic. In a game that has only two outcomes, win or die, Jane must figure out who she can trust... and who she can't.

Koontz's pen can write no wrong! This thriller draws you in right from the beginning and demands that you strap in tight, because it is going to be a full throttle ride full of danger, intrigue and suspense, that you will not soon forget. Koontz has done an excellent job of bringing his literary forte' of horror into the modern, technological age and keeping his story line current with "the times". In a world where astonishing advancements in bio-technology are being made at an astoundingly-rapid rate, this novel sucks you down the rabbit hole into a future where the products of the progression and melding of scientific and biological advancements and techniques may not be quite as farfetched and fairy tale as they might seem.

I can't wait to see what flights of fancy (Or are they?) Koontz and Hawk will draw me into next.

I'd love to see Jane Hawk made into a movie series! I think she would make for a riveting protagonist on the "big screen".

*I received a complimentary ARC of this book from NetGalley & Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine in order to read and provide a voluntary, unbiased and honest review, should I choose to do so.

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Jane is on a quest but it’s getting her in big trouble. After her husband’s apparent suicide, Jane is convinced that he was murdered and she begins to research suicides throughout the country. What she learns is that the suicide rate is on the rise and many were people who had no risk of being suicidal. Jane suspects there is a mind-control conspiracy behind all this and when someone enters her home and threatens her 5 year-old son she is convinced that someone with massive resources is trying to silence her. Her search for answers will take her across the country and force her to do things she would never have thought possible. Her FBI career and her life are under threat but Jane is determined to find answers and justice.

This book is thrilling and creepy and scary and just a delicious read. I immediately connected with Jane and was completely swept up in her mission. I really liked how the author was able to add so much depth to her character. She is not just one thing. In this story she is and FBI agent, but she is also a mother, and a concerned citizen. Her ability is balance all the aspects of her life, while at the same time being chased by assassins is remarkable. Of course, I would expect nothing less than a complex character from this author. Along the journey, Jane gets help from a whole cast of other characters, among whom the good guys are as good as the bad guys are bad. This is also one of those books that will make you pause for a moment and consider how close we are to having the type of technology described and whether or not we really want it. This is a big book but it’s worth every minute. There is never a dull moment.

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First off, I admit I'm a bit biased where Dean Koontz is concerned. I've read just about every book he's written and loved them all. But THIS book??? This one takes my love for him to a completely different level. I couldn't wait to finish the book to see what happens with Jane and her quest for truth and vengeance, but at the same time, I hated getting to the end because then it would be over. Imagine my joy when I realized Koontz is not yet done with Jane and her quest! Highly recommend because as usual Dean Koontz does not disappoint!

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This is packed full of action, and psychological thrills. Those looking for horror won't be disappointed as the chilling mind control aspects and murder/mayhem will more than satisfy. This will wind up a film, I'll bet.

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