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The Crooked Staircase

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Jane Hawk—who dazzled readers in The Silent Corner and The Whispering Room—faces the fight of her life, against the threat of a lifetime, in this electrifying thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling suspense master Dean Koontz.
 
“I could be dead tomorrow. Or something worse than dead.”
 
Jane Hawk knows she may be living on borrowed time. But as long as she’s breathing, she’ll never cease her one-woman war against the terrifying conspiracy that threatens the freedom—and free will—of millions. Battling the strange epidemic of murder-suicides that claimed Jane’s husband, and is escalating across the country, has made the rogue FBI agent a wanted fugitive, relentlessly hunted not only by the government but by the secret cabal behind the plot. Deploying every resource their malign nexus of power and technology commands, Jane’s enemies are determined to see her dead . . . or make her wish she was.
Jane’s ruthless pursuers can’t stop her from drawing a bead on her prey: a cunning man with connections in high places, a twisted soul of unspeakable depths with an army of professional killers on call. Propelled by her righteous fury and implacable insistence on justice, Jane will make her way from southern Southern California to the snow-swept slopes of Lake Tahoe to confront head-on the lethal forces arrayed against her. But nothing can prepare her for the chilling truth that awaits when she descends the crooked staircase to the dark and dreadful place where her long nightmare was born.
Don’t miss any of Dean Koontz’s gripping Jane Hawk thrillers:
THE SILENT CORNER • THE WHISPERING ROOM • THE CROOKED STAIRCASE • THE FORBIDDEN DOOR • THE NIGHT WINDOW 

Praise for The Crooked Staircase

“An absorbing thriller full of fresh touches . . . Writing his unusual heroine, Koontz keeps the pages alive with attitude as well as action. . . . For Hawk, who is as fearless as she is beautiful, no obstacle is too great, especially with the well-being of her hidden-away five-year-old son on her mind.”Kirkus Reviews
“Spellbinding . . . Beautifully plotted and written with notable care and flare . . . The Hawk series . . . is among [Koontz’s] best work.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Unrelenting . . . [Jane] rivets readers’ attention. . . . Michael Crichton fans and thriller aficionados who appreciate a fierce female protagonist . . . should be urged to meet Jane Hawk.”Library Journal
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    • Kirkus

      April 1, 2018
      Former FBI agent Jane Hawk continues her no-holds-barred campaign against the mind-control conspiracy that caused the suicide of her decorated Marine husband.In past adventures (The Whispering Room, 2017, etc.), Hawk dispatched some of the baddies responsible for creating and injecting brainwashing nanotech implants--and dramatically raising the national suicide rate. With the cabal entrenched in government agencies and private industry, she got indicted for espionage, treason, and murder and is now the most wanted person in America. Continuing her mission to restore her husband's good name and nail Booth Hendrickson, the corrupt Department of Justice figure behind the conspiracy, she must evade all manner of sophisticated surveillance technology. Her path to Hendrickson is through his half brother, Simon, a mother-obsessed sociopath who tortures and psychologically breaks women. To get to Simon, Hawk must tame his naïve spitfire girlfriend, the memorably named Petra Quist. For Hawk, who is as fearless as she is beautiful, no obstacle is too great, especially with the well-being of her hidden-away 5-year-old son on her mind. There is seemingly nothing she doesn't know, from intricate details about alarm systems to the functions of the three pairs of saliva glands. She's also a skilled pianist. With many pages devoted to a less compelling parallel mind-scrubbing story about brilliant young fraternal twins, the book sometimes bogs down in the padding. But writing his unusual heroine, Koontz keeps the pages alive with attitude as well as action.The third book in Koontz's lively series tends to rehash scenes from the first two, but it's still an absorbing thriller full of fresh touches.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from May 1, 2018
      In the third Jane Hawk novel, the renegade FBI agent continues her relentless pursuit of the people behind the conspiracy that cost her husband his life. Someone has been turning ordinary men and women into puppets (� la The Manchurian Candidate), forcing them to commit murder and, then, to commit suicide. Driven by rage and an unquenchable thirst for answers, Jane risks her own life to exact revenge on the people who took her husband from her. Beautifully plotted and written with notable care and flare, the novel is a spellbinding follow-up to The Whispering Room and The Silent Corner, both published in 2017. It works just fine as a stand-alone, too, as Koontz allows Jane to bring the reader up to speed in a way that doesn't feel shoehorned into the story. Koontz has had a long and consistently best-selling career, encompassing horror, science fiction, fantasy, and straight-up thrillers, and he's rarely stumbled. The Hawk series?there's a fourth one scheduled to be published in October 2018?is among his best work.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Expect all the promotional bells and whistles to be clanging and wailing at full volume as Koontz once again climbs the best-seller lists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

    • Kirkus

      April 1, 2018
      Former FBI agent Jane Hawk continues her no-holds-barred campaign against the mind-control conspiracy that caused the suicide of her decorated Marine husband.In past adventures (The Whispering Room, 2017, etc.), Hawk dispatched some of the baddies responsible for creating and injecting brainwashing nanotech implants--and dramatically raising the national suicide rate. With the cabal entrenched in government agencies and private industry, she got indicted for espionage, treason, and murder and is now the most wanted person in America. Continuing her mission to restore her husband's good name and nail Booth Hendrickson, the corrupt Department of Justice figure behind the conspiracy, she must evade all manner of sophisticated surveillance technology. Her path to Hendrickson is through his half brother, Simon, a mother-obsessed sociopath who tortures and psychologically breaks women. To get to Simon, Hawk must tame his na�ve spitfire girlfriend, the memorably named Petra Quist. For Hawk, who is as fearless as she is beautiful, no obstacle is too great, especially with the well-being of her hidden-away 5-year-old son on her mind. There is seemingly nothing she doesn't know, from intricate details about alarm systems to the functions of the three pairs of saliva glands. She's also a skilled pianist. With many pages devoted to a less compelling parallel mind-scrubbing story about brilliant young fraternal twins, the book sometimes bogs down in the padding. But writing his unusual heroine, Koontz keeps the pages alive with attitude as well as action.The third book in Koontz's lively series tends to rehash scenes from the first two, but it's still an absorbing thriller full of fresh touches.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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