In By the Light of the Moon artist Dylan O'Connor is driving through Arizona with his autistic brother Shepherd, and decides to catch up on his sleep in a motel. But (as Hitchcock demonstrated) motels can be dangerous places, and Dylan is soon tied up, gagged and being pumped full of strange fluid by sinister doctor. At the same time, comedian Jillian Jackson is watching her career feebly played out against a succession of down-market comedy joints. All her dreams of changing her life are torpedoed when she, too, becomes a victim of the deranged scientist, who steals her car. Then begins a lunatic chase, involving the doctor and his victims, and the surfaces of reality quickly become very insubstantial. As the plot suggests, Koontz's new book is quite unlike anything he has written before (or, for that matter, unlike anything by his contemporaries); the highly ingenious plotting is matched by some beguilingly off-kilter characterisation and a breathtaking pace that allows for little pause. One can only admire this writer's refusal to repeat himself: a phenomenon all too rare with so many other thriller writers simply recycling the same old material. --Barry Forshaw