Sole Survivor
A Novel
-
-
4.1 • 125 Ratings
-
-
- $7.99
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
A catastrophic, unexplainable plane crash leaves three hundred and thirty dead -- no survivors. Among the victims are the wife and two daughters of Joe Carpenter, a Los Angeles Post crime reporter.
A year after the crash, still gripped by an almost paralyzing grief, Joe encounters a woman named Rose, who claims to have survived the crash. She holds out the possibility of a secret that will bring Joe peace of mind. But before he can ask any questions, she slips away.
Driven now by rage (have the authorities withheld information?) and a hope almost as unbearable as his grief (if there is one survivor, are there others?), Joe sets out to find the mysterious woman. His search immediately leads him into the path of a powerful and shadowy organization hell-bent on stopping Rose before she can reveal what she knows about the crash.
Sole Survivor unfolds at a heart-stopping pace, as a desperate chase and a shattering emotional odyssey lead Joe to a truth that will force him to reassess everything he thought he knew about life and death -- a truth that, given the chance, will rock the world and redefine the destiny of humanity.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dean Koontz's The City.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Koontz's last thriller, Intensity, delivered shocks like a stripped hot wire. Here, the insulation-the preaching about societal rot and spiritual redemption-is back on, thicker than ever. And that's too bad, because this tale is emblematic of how, in 15 years of bestsellers, Koontz has bridged the commercial gap between the occultism of Stephen King and the scientism of Michael Crichton. Like Crichton's Airframe (also from Knopf; Forecasts, Nov. 11), this novel focuses on the aftermath of an airline disaster, a crash that has apparently killed all on board and has ravaged the soul of L.A. crime reporter Joe Carpenter. A year after the crash, Joe, who lost his wife and two daughters, is a walking dead man. A visit to their graves wrenches his life around when he spots a black woman taking photos of the site and sees her set upon by thugs. Incredible events follow. Joe witnesses relatives of the crash victims commit senseless suicide, learns that the woman, a genetic scientist, was on the plane but miraculously survived, finds out that she is the quarry of a military-industrial cabal and gains hope that one of his daughters also may have survived. The secret behind the mayhem, which is delivered at breakneck speed, concerns a "scientific" breakthrough into "mystical" truth that Koontz presents like an absentminded professor. But if his science his bad, his soapboxing is worse-a merciless rant against moral turpitude-and his prose is ripe to the point of decay. Has Koontz ever met an adjective or adverb, metaphor or simile, that he hasn't liked? His sympathetic characters drown in the overwriting; his uplifting sentiments wither under the finger-wagging. Driven by author name, marketing and theme, this will sell big, but the sole survivor won't be the reader. 600,000 first printing; major ad/promo; Literary Guild main selection; simultaneous Random House audio and large print edition; author tour.
Customer Reviews
Can you survive this Dean Koontz roller-coaster?
Dean Koontz, master of suspense, provides readers with another nonstop, lightning-paced thriller with Sole Survivor, the heart-wrenching, suspenseful, terrifying story of Joe Carpenter, a man whose entire family is killed in a horrific plane crash that no one survives... only to face the hopeful, astonishing possibility that one of his young daughters COULD have survived after he finds a woman standing in front of his family’s graves, taking pictures of their headstones. She claims to have been the flight’s sole survivor! Is it possible that, if this mysterious woman, who goes by the name of Rose, survived the crash, that one of Joe’s children could have also survived? This simple question, this fragile hope, sends him on a dizzying search for answers, leading he and an innocent woman both into danger. As Joe searches for the truth, he discovers astounding and horrendous secrets, secrets that are darker than anything he ever could have imagined! He also, however, discovers profound truths that will change him in ways he never could’ve foreseen, in ways that will instill in him a new kind of hope, a fervent faith that someday something better could be waiting for each and every one of us. A wonderful story of courage, faith, hope, and love, of terror, suspense, mystery, and excitement! Another masterpiece of spectacular fiction from the incomparable Dean Koontz!
Sole Survivor
This was the very first Dean Koontz book that made me fall in love with his books. Have yet to be disappointed.