Intensity by Dean Koontz
A taut survival tale that is, naturally, incredibly intense
You can’t get much simpler than this…
A young woman named Chynna evades a home invasion by a violent murderer, stows away on his motor home, then tries to escape at the earliest opportunity.
Intensity is a taut, pared-down, all-too-plausible horror survival tale that is, naturally, incredibly intense.
The entire narrative is compressed into a roughly 24-hour period, mostly following Chynna’s quest to survive her encounter with this madman as her actions lead the story on a clear journey from A to B to C, etc.
You are with Chynna every step of the way. Inside her head as she assesses the situation in front of her, trying to figure out the right move. Thinking ahead to potential problems that might occur.
It is a brutal, nerve-wracking, page-turner of a novel that hooks you quickly and doesn’t let up.
Yet for all the vivid action that occurs, Koontz finds ways to slip in references to Chynna’s past, so we increasingly understand who she is and why she makes the decisions that she does.
We learn that she’s a Psychology graduate student. We learn that she was raised by her nomadic outlaw mother in a series of seedy holes across the country. We learn that she grew up enduring a series of terrifying encounters with cruel and deviant assholes.
Much of this is introduced in the opening chapter as Chynna and her friend Laura drive to Laura’s parents’ house for the weekend. It is there that the killer strikes — slaughtering Laura and her parents, but unaware of Chynna’s presence.
Through smart decisions and good luck, Chynna manages to survive and even escape to the safety of an all-night truck stop… until she overhears the murderer brag to the cashier about another girl he has chained up in his basement.
Chynna makes a key decision at that point that puts her squarely back in harm’s way. She realizes that if she escapes, there’s no way she could help the police identify this psychopath and rescue his prisoner.
So she figures out a way to get inside his remote compound and hopes she’ll come up with a plan from there…
And this is where the book takes a turn. Chynna is trapped. The book slows. Things are still scary, but the pace is less intense… and it all feels rather more “filler” than “killer” as the book indulges in a series of not-exactly-necessary deviations into Chynna’s past and further insight into the killer — who, incidentally, is not a crazy lunatic simply acting on bloodthirsty instinct, but rather a very analytical and methodical butcher, which makes him all the scarier.
Don’t get me wrong, by this point in the book a breather is most certainly welcome, but the frenetic energy of the first half gets bogged down unnecessarily and the intensity of the first half seems like a different book. Key example: an extended yet plodding section detailing the minutia of Chynna trying to free herself from a chair she’s shackled to.
Quibbles aside, Intensity is a thoroughly enjoyable serial killer survival novel, but I wish it managed to sustain the energy, excitement, and sheer momentum of its first half throughout its duration.