Winter Moon [With Headphones] Book

Please note that I gave this book 4.5 stars, but rounded it up to 5 stars on Goodreads.

Well this is old school Koontz and I like it. We did have a golden retriever, but you can't win them all.

"Winter Moon" follows two parallel stories. One of Heather and Jack McGarvey and their young son Toby. And the other follows Eduardo Fernandez. These people have never met, but due to the actions of one, both are going to come face to face with something that is intent on destruction.

Jack is a LAPD patrol officer whose life is changed after responding to a complaint at a gas station. Before he knows what has happened, a seemingly rich man has open fire, shooting him, his partner, and the owner and others. For he and Heather this is just another long line of things that have gone wrong for them in LA.

Eduardo is still grieving the death of his wife three years before and the most recent death of his son who was an LAPD police officer. Living in Montana, in a ranch that was left to him by his dead employer, Eduardo has almost everything he can want. Until one night a light and sound wakens him and he realizes he is not as alone as he thought.

I liked all of the characters very much. I have to say though that I didn't really get Eduardo though. Maybe because my first response to something that freaks me out is to get the hell out as fast as possible. His reasoning for staying and trying to understand what was going on felt a bit false to me as a reader. I think Koontz wanted to keep him there for the story purposes which is fine. But trying to have him handwave it away due to this and him being a hermit, not being believed, felt wrong somehow.

Another character that felt a bit off to me was the character of Toby. He is eight. He also swore around his parents and I almost fell over at that one. Believe me when I say that my parents would have had soap so fast in my mouth it would not have been funny. He also seemed older than his years, though you can explain that by what has happened in his own family, and the fights he endures after his father is shot. So I got it. At least Koontz resisted the urge to have him older than his years and somehow be a super genius (yeah one of these days I am going to do an entire Koontz read and you it will not be pretty).

The writing was great. Koontz can turn a sentence and can instill fear in you in just a few short words. I did notice a few typos here and there (nothing terrible, was was capitalized in a middle of a sentence and another word should have been "and") but nothing that would disturb anyone's reading. Sometimes he got a bit too into explaining guns (which made me think of later books) but other than that everything gelled together nicely.

The setting of LA and Montana stood apart quite differently. These characters in different places both going through such terrible things pretty much showcased how the grass is not always greener.

One thing that did blow me away while reading this is how crazy that this book was written in 1993 and right now the same discussion regarding police officers and guns is going on in this country. I do have to say that I get that there are good and bad police officers out there. Koontz though showcased a world that had gone crazy due to politicians making things easier for those out there to commit crimes and the police having no way to push back against it. The whole thing left me a little bit sour mouthed because I don't believe people are against police officers doing their job. They are against bad cops thinking they are above the law.