Mini-Review of The Silent Corner (Jane Hawk, Book 1)

Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 2.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

Dean Koontz knows how to build an interesting premise: we meet Jane Hawk and we know from the beginning that she has suffered a great loss, that she is being pursued, and that all is not right in the world. Hawk is on leave from the FBI, cautious of surveillance, and appears to be skeptical about surviving for a few more months, let alone a few more years. 

Following the inexplicable suicide of her husband (a Marine), she's pursuing a private investigation and trying to find the links in strings of unlikely suicides. The book moves quickly, but what starts with a mild suspension of disbelief soon requires the reader to move from suspension to excision. Many of the thriller clichés are at play here - shady conspiracies, ever-present surveillance, rich and powerful adversaries, mad (or at least megalomaniacal) scientists (technological and biological), and a heroine who the author repeatedly reminds us is drop dead gorgeous. The number of fortuitous escapes and increasingly murky layers of plot are fun in a "turn off your brain" kind of way, but I can’t say I have any interest in jumping any more sharks by continuing this (currently at five books) series.