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'Fear Nothing' by Dean Koontz

Fearsome Plot Sinks Koontz's `Fear Nothing'

Sunday, January 18, 1998

By Allan Walton, Assistant Managing Editor, Post-Gazette

	Fear Nothing By Dean Koontz Bantam Books $26.95

Not that I'm out to spoil the ending or anything, but ``Fear Nothing,'' the new Dean Koontz novel, climaxes in a surreal shootout involving two surfer dudes, a dog, a female DJ, a burly bald guy with an earring and a troop of monkeys.

I don't mean ``troop'' in the sense of a military unit, although that's not far off. I mean troop as in the term applied to a band of monkeys.

With me so far? I didn't think so. Here's a little context.

Christopher Snow is a 28-year-old writer with a beach-boy mentality and a vampire's curse. No bloodsucker, he's nonetheless doomed to a life of darkness because of a rare, sometimes fatal genetic disorder called xeroderma pigmentosum, or XP for short. He's not an albino; he's normal in every way except that exposure to ultraviolet rays - even from fluorescent lights - could be disastrous.

Goodbye sunshine, hello darkness my old friend.

We're introduced to him on the day his father is introduced to the grim reaper. A simple case of cancer, it would seem. But as the hospital turns over the body to a mortuary, Snowman, as his DJ gal pal Sasha calls him, witnesses some strange goings-on. His father's body is switched for one of a hapless hitchhiker, a victim of a savage beating that ended with someone – or something - plucking out his eyes.

Snowman sets out to discover what's up and soon finds himself involved in a mystifying, terrifying tale that involves all of Moonlight Bay, a quaint California coastal town, and a coterie of connivers from beyond.

Snowman makes his way to the mortuary but is discovered by an underhanded undertaker named Sandy Kirk. An ensuing chase grows all the more perplexing when, in dodging the malevolent posse, Snowman follows a tad-too-intelligent cat into an underground drainage catacomb that houses hundreds of skulls - animal and human.

Armed with this knowledge and little else, he finds a phone and calls police pal Manuel Ramirez. Only trouble is, some of the bad guys show up at police headquarters. And it's a welcoming party.

Snowman melts back into the darkness and heads home, arming himself with a 9-mm. Glock that belonged to his father. Better than that, he grabs his faithful mutt Orson and heads out in search of answers.

He gets his first from Angela Ferryman, a nurse and family friend. Speaking in cryptic sentences, Angela relates a story about the time a Rhesus monkey paid her a surprise visit. Cute and cuddly it wasn't.

It turns out her husband, a military man stationed at the nearby and now closed (or so they say) Fort Wyvern, told Angela the monkey was part of a research project. And nefarious research at that, otherwise why would her husband have killed himself a short while later?

Angela would have had more to say, but she left the room. By the time Snowman finds her, she's left the world.

In due course, Snowman makes his way to the beach retreat of childhood friend and surf warrior Bobby Halloway, where the monkey trail takes on new credence.

After a few more nocturnal encounters - with an ex-football player, a demented cop, a priest to the primates (!) - we learn that Moonlight Bay is a hotbed of DNA research and that Snowman's mother was involved in some sneaky governmental work that involved intra-species gene therapy.

All for pure purposes, of course.

We could go on, but let's not. Instead, take stock of this revolutionary evolutionary plot:

* We have a guy cavorting around after dark because sunshine could turn him to toast.

* A funeral home plays abra cadaver with its clientele.

* Innocent hitchhikers are turned into Rhesus pieces.

* An out-of-business military base reopens for monkey business.

* Two beach boys, a DJ and a dog named Orson are all that stand between us, the Planet of the Apes . . . God, maybe even a Charlton Heston film festival.

Any one of the five should be enough to make you wonder, ``Remember the good old days when Dean Koontz could write?''

OK, that's cold. I like Dean Koontz. And he can write. Even in this silly, convoluted story, he develops some interesting characters and supplies hip, involving dialogue. He even hints that he'll revisit Snowman, Bobby, Sasha and Orson somewhere down the line.

But if so, let's hope he finds a plot first.

Meanwhile, as you Koontz fans hunt for reasons to read this book, consider this simple advice from our esteemed 32nd president: ``The only thing we have to fear is `Fear Nothing'! ''

Or words to that effect.