Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz

I watch several tv science fiction/horror series that I seriously have no idea what is going on.   I joke that they could pretty much have anything happen and I would accept it, because I am that lost.  Sometimes I catch glimpses of what is really going on, but for the most part, I am lost.  I kind of felt that way in Ashley Bell: A Novel. I had no clue what was going on.

The story opens when Bibi Blair is ten years old.  We learn that even at that young age, Bibi is a writer.  She keeps a diary and writes short stories about a dog named Jasper.  Jasper is a mutt who keeps trying, but is unsuccessful in finding a loving caring home.  One day as Bibi was sitting outside writing, a golden retriever wanders up the pathway (of course it does, this is a Dean Koontz book after all).  She names him Olaf.  That seems clear enough, but then she removes the collar that he is wearing and hides it in a box in the closet.  With that we are given a glimpse into the mystery that is about to begin

There is so much going on in this book, it’s hard to even explain it without giving anything a way.  Past and present are interwoven.  What you think you know, really isn’t the way it is.  Something is going on in the apartment where the captain lived.  Blood on doorknobs that’s there and then gone.  A man and a dog appearing in the fog.  Tattoos and injuries that appear out of nowhere.  Dean Koontz gives us clues and bits as we go along and slowly things start to make sense.  At the end, when you see how things are, you want to go back to the beginning and reread, knowing what you know.

Bibi is a strong character.  She makes a competent  heroine, trying to save Ashely Bell and fight an evil that’s even bigger than she thought it was.