People who know me were surprised to find out that it took me several months to read The Face by Dean Koontz when I could easily finish a novel in one sitting. I love Dean Koontz’ works but I found this one to be too predictable for my liking, which is why I preferred reading manga in bed at night.
Ethan Truman is the head of security for The Face, who is a Hollywood superstar. The actor and his family receive threats from an anarchist in form of strange gifts. Truman tries his best to solve the riddle as some characters, including him, have supernatural encounters.
The Face is not one of the main characters in the novel. Aside from Truman, the glorified bodyguard, it featured The Face’s son Aelfric Manheim. Everyone thought that the target was the actor but it turned out that he was after the son so that he could hurt the actor more. It could have been funny to see the anarchist’s reaction when he finds out that The Face had ignored his son and was focused more on his career.
There are times when Koontz’ way of describing the characters and their environment made the novel tedious to read. Some people might find the story to be too odd or bizarre but it didn’t have problems in that department. I accepted the supernatural concepts presented by the book, which might be the reason why I guessed the direction of the story.
With all the mumbo-jumbo in The Face, details tend drown the essence of the story. I know that this is Koontz’ style and I enjoyed his other novels, which is why I wonder why I can’t say the same with this one. But even if I don’t like this book, I wouldn’t stop reading the rest of his works.
