Just Finished Reading The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz

I had just finished reading Clifford Simak's 1952 science fiction novel City, which initially gave no indication that it would made a big deal about dogs, and picked up Dean Koontz's 2007 horror/suspense novel The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz...guess what, it's all about dogs, too!  Only with Koontz's story, it's about golden retrievers in particular.  Amy Redwing, a young woman with a secret past, has devoted her life to caring for abandoned or abused golden retrievers.  Brian McCarthy, her love interest, has his own past...including a sadistic ex-girlfriend with custody of their mentally handicapped daughter Hope.  Amy and Brian are the clear-cut "good guys".  On the "bad" side are two of the most evil people I have ever read about...and there have been some pretty awful ones.  There is a lot of killing and torturing...both physical and psychological...in this novel, and I think the author went way overboard in depicting how Hope (who her mother calls "Piggy") is mistreated.  But have no fear, folks, for the noble golden retrievers...led by the seemingly angelic Nickie...have come to save the day...

The Darkest Evening of the Year, on one hand, is a feel-good story about dogs and how we should treat them better.  But little children are also vulnerable, and they should be treated better than they often are.  The problem I had with Koontz's novel, though, is that his characterizations of the protagonists Amy and Brian seemed too shallow while he dwelled deeply on the thought processes of the evil Vanessa, her boyfriend, and the completely amoral hit man they hired.  On one hand the author is saying to be good to dogs and kids...on the other, he's giving a primer on how to develop for oneself a philosophy of pure evil.  So no, I didn't care for this book...but then again, you might beg to differ: why not try it out and give your own impressions?