The Night Window is a thriller written by Dean Koontz and closes out the saga which features ex-FBI Jane Hawk’s fight against the Tech Arcadians, who like to infect people with nanobots and compel them to do vile, unspeakable acts against loved ones and others. After five novels, it comes to an end.
There are all kinds of chase scenes going on. A young movie director is being stalked through the winter night by a billionaire megalomaniac who is the head of the dastardly Arcadians. Jane Hawk is joined by a former colleague who has a bit of a crush on her in spite of her still being a grieving widow. Another hitman who likes to perform random acts of cruelty is on her tail. Koontz has quite a few threads running together until what is supposed to be the exciting conclusion.
I may still be reading Koontz more out of a sense of nostalgia than any significant enjoyment these days. He’s still a talented writer, but I am sort of finding too much repetition in the types of characters he presents. I like Jane Hawk, but she just seems to be another archetype strong female protagonist who is just a little too badass to be believable. Of course, this is basically a science fiction thriller, but still…I am having a hard time finding anything that unique about her for this genre.
Koontz knows how to create a sociopath, but even the various mercenaries and assassins are kind of blending together in my memories.
Overall, this novel landed a couple of notches above mediocre. There were a few moments that were pretty gripping, but I wasn’t kept riveted with any amount of consistency. I hope some of the projects Koontz are able to keep as engaged as his earlier works. Hopefully, Jane Hawk is able to live out a long, peaceful life in the fictional realm with her son, and Dean Koontz come up with something a bit more unique and thrilling in his next release.
I recently saw the movie, “The Gray Man” with Ryan Gosling and was not impressed with that, however I am still interested to actually read something in the series of novels from which it was based. Mark Greaney is the next author on tap as I learn how Relentless the Gray Man can truly be.
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