Mr. Murder. By: Dean R. Koontz

Mr. Murder. By: Dean R. Koontz

Mr. Murder. By: Dean R. Koontz

Synopsis:

Mystery writer Marty Stillwater’s happy life in southern California is

turned upside-down by a stranger claiming to be he. By the best-selling

author of Midnight.

Berkley Pub Group;

ISBN: 0425144429

Copyright 1996

Winter that year was strange and gray.

The damp wind smelled of Apocalypse, and morning skies had a peculiar

way of slipping cat-quick into midnight.

–The Book of Counted Sorrows

Life is an unrelenting comedy. Therein

lies the tragedy of it.

the Dead Bishop, Martin Stillwater Leaning back in his comfortable

leather office chair, rocking gently, holding a compact cassette

recorder in his right hand and dictating a letter to his editor in New

York, Martin Stillwater suddenly realized he was repeating the same two

words in a dreamy whisper.

“. . . I need . . . I need . . . I need . ..”

Frowning, Marty clicked off the recorder.

His train of thought had clattered down a siding and chugged to a stop.

He could not recall what he had been about to say.

Needed what?

The big house was not merely quiet but eerily still. Paige had taken

the kids to lunch and a Saturday matinee movie.

But this childless silence was more than just a condition. It had

substance. The air felt heavy with it.

He put one hand to the nape of his neck. His palm was cool and moist.

He shivered.

Outside, the autumn day was as hushed as the house, as if all of

southern California had been vacated. At the only window of his

second-floor study, the wide louvers of the plantation shutters were

ajar. Sunlight slanted between angled slats, imprinting the sofa and

carpet with narrow red-gold stripes as lustrous as fox fur, the nearest

luminous ribbon wrapped one corner of the U-shaped desk.

I need . . .

Instinct told him that something important had happened only a moment

ago, just out of his sight, perceived subliminally.

He swiveled his chair and surveyed the room behind him. Other than the

fasciae of coppery sunshine interleaved with louver shadows, the only

light came from a small desk lamp with a stained-glass shade. Even in

that gloom, however, he could see he was alone with his books, research

files, and computer.

Perhaps the silence seemed unnaturally deep only because the house had

been filled with noise and bustle since Wednesday, when the schools had

closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. He missed the kids. He should

have gone to the movie with them.

I need . . .

The words had been spoken with peculiar tension–and long Now an ominous

feeling overcame him, a keen sense of impending danger. It was felt in

his novels, and which he always struggled to describe without resorting

to cliches.

He had not actually experienced anything like it in years, not since

Charlotte had been seriously ill when she was four and the doctor had

prepared them for the possibility of cancer. All day in the hospital,

as his little girl had been wheeled from one lab to another for tests,

all that sleepless night, and during the long days that followed before

the physicians ventured a diagnosis, Marty felt haunted by a malevolent

spirit whose presence thickened the air, making it difficult to breathe,

to move, to hope. As it turned out, his daughter had been threatened

neither by supernatural malevolence nor malignancy. The problem was a

treatable blood disorder. Within three months Charlotte recovered.

But he remembered that oppressive dread too well.

He was in its icy grip again, though for no discernible reason.

Charlotte and Emily were healthy, well-adjusted kids. He and Paige were

happy together–absurdly happy, considering how many thirty-something

couples of their acquaintance were divorced, separated, or cheating on

each other. Financially, they were more secure than they had ever

expected to be.

Nevertheless, Marty knew something was wrong.

He put down the tape recorder, went to the window, and opened the

shutters all the way. A leafless sycamore cast stark, elongated shadows

across the small side yard. Beyond those gnarled branches, the

pale-yellow stucco walls of the house next door appeared to have soaked

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