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Jill Elizabeth has read 1 book toward her goal of 285 books.
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2023 Reading Challenge
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Book Review: The Whispering Room by Dean Koontz

“You’re dead already… They’ll all know about you in the whispering room.”

I just LOVE this series! I reviewed the first bookThe Silent Corner – earlier this year and was so intrigued by Jane Hawk and the evil she is battling that I could not wait for the next installment… In this, the second, Jane is still on the run, still facing untold and nearly unimaginable horrors. Well, nearly unimaginable until you start *really* thinking about the pervasive nature of technology – then they become altogether TOO imaginable, which makes them even more horrific. The investigative aspects of this story are engaging. As Jane teases out the ever-increasingly widespread reach of this conspiracy, the elements slowly come together and apart with a subtle tension that is delectable. The characterization in this installment is really great. As Jane journeys across the country and over and through the devastation that opens the book, she discovers not only layers of evil scattered throughout, but also bright spots of hope in the form of a truly extraordinary supporting cast that renews my faith in humanity. The people who dance into and out of Jane’s path are such polar opposites – the magnificently evil and phenomenally good are sprinkled in the most unlikely places, and discovering them and teasing out which are which is a very enjoyable part of the reading.

I’ve read other reviews of this book that criticize it for not having the shock value and non-stop action of the first book. That is a true issue, but I don’t think there was really any way to avoid it. This is a living, breathing plot – a lot of this second book lays out the next steps on Jane’s journey against D.J. Michael and his (for lack of a better term) cabal, and by definition the next steps in any journey are never as novel as the first… Still, Koontz manages to blend in plenty of interesting character development in this one and that helped me over some of the bits that would have otherwise seemed slower in pace and activity. The plot is thickening, and like anything that thickens, the process takes time. I have the patience to wait it out, because I have no doubt that the result will be utterly worth the wait. I’ve seen mention of at least two more Jane Hawk books in the works, and I look forward to both!

“…if there was any hope of freedom in the future, it resided in the ironic fact that the highly perfected technology of this age was operated by fallible human beings who might never quite control it for maximum oppression…”

My review copy was provided by NetGalley. The Whispering Room will release on November 21, 2017.

1 comment to Book Review: The Whispering Room by Dean Koontz

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