It began in sunshine...

How could I put together a list of scary books to honor Halloween and not include a work by Dean Koontz?  I've read Koontz for a zillion years and I have always found his stuff consistently entertaining and spooky, although I tend to prefer his early titles to his later, kinder, gentler work.  If I have to pick the scariest Koontz, I'm going to go with The Servants of Twilight.  It may not be the best or even the most interesting book DK has ever produced, but the book gave me chills, mostly thanks to the very ambiguous ending.

Servants opens with single parent Christine Scavello and her young son Joey being confronted in a mall parking lot by a  crazy old lady who claims that Joey is the Antichrist.  After her home is invaded and the family dog is killed, Christine begins to take the situation seriously and hires private detective, Charlie Harrison to protect Joey and help her figure out why these people are after her son.  Harrison links the attacks to the crazy lady from the mall who turns out to be Grace Spivery, the charismatic leader of a fanatical religious cult, The Servants of Twilight.  As Charlie and Christine go on the run to protect Joey from the relentless pursuit of the Servants, the novel speeds toward what at first appears predictable but eventually turns out to be a surprising and disturbing finale.  

As is usually the case in a Koontz book, there is more going on here than a simple scary tale about religious obsession.  Just when the reader believes that good and innocence have triumphed, and they are ready to sit  back and smugly enjoy the righteous conclusion, Koontz provides a twist that makes one question everything that has come before.  Definitely gives the complacent reader a good kick in the pants!  

So, if you find religious fanaticism of any sort as scary as I and if you enjoy some moral ambiguity with your thrills and chills, then The Servants of Twilight may very well prove a delicious Halloween treat for you.  Either way, take my advice and read some of Koontz's older stuff.  There is some truly entertaining and original horror to be found in his backlist.