Velocity, Dean Koontz
Velocity, Dean Koontz
159 Rating(s)
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Velocity

Author: Dean Koontz

Narrator: Michael Hayden

Unabridged: 9 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/24/2005


Synopsis

Dean Koontz’s unique talent for writing terrifying thrillers with a heart and soul is nowhere more evident than in this latest suspense masterpiece that pits one man against the ultimate deadline. If there were speed limits for the sheer pulse-racing excitement allowed in one novel, Velocity would break them all. Get ready for the ride of your life.…

Bill Wile is an easygoing, hardworking guy who leads a quiet, ordinary life. But that is about to change. One evening, after his usual eight-hour bartending shift, he finds a typewritten note under the windshield wiper of his car. If you don’t take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours.

It seems like a sick joke, and Bill’s friend on the police force, Lanny Olson, thinks so too. His advice to Bill is to go home and forget about it. Besides, what could they do even if they took the note seriously? No crime has actually been committed. But less than twenty-four hours later, a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered, and it’s Bill’s fault: he didn’t convince the police
to get involved. Now he’s got another note, another deadline, another ultimatum…and two new lives hanging in the balance.

Suddenly Bill’s average, seemingly innocuous life takes on the dimensions and speed of an accelerating nightmare. Because the notes are coming faster, the deadlines growing tighter, and the killer becoming bolder and crueler with every communication—until Bill is isolated with the terrifying knowledge that he alone has the power of life and death over a psychopath’s innocent victims. Until the struggle between good and evil is intensely personal. Until the most chilling words of all are: The choice is yours.

About Dean Koontz

Author Dean Koontz was born in Everett Pennsylvania in 1945. He has used various Pen names such as, Aaron Wolfe, Brian Coffey, David Axton, Deanna Dwyer, John Hill, K.R. Dwyer, Leigh Nichols, Anthony North, Owen West and Richard Paige. His accomplished occupations include novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and poet. Most people were not aware of his many Pen names and various talents in literature besides novelist. Koontz genres of choice are suspense, horror and science fiction thrillers. He has had 14 hardcovers and 14 paperbacks making it to #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list. According to the Dean Kootnz official website, he has sold more than 450 million copies of his books.

A little known fact about Dean Koontz is that he had hair transplantation in the late intos. Many of his novels are set in or around Orange County, California where he lives with his wife Gerda, in Newport Coast in an estate named Pelican Hills. His reported annual salary is $25 million.1990


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alejandro on September 23, 2014

This is indeed a novel with speed incorporated! As the title Velocity hints the rhythm of the narrative. A clear fast tempo. You are barely getting comfy in your seat when you realize that you need to fasten your seatbelt right away! The premise is simple but performed in a brilliant and very enter......more

Goodreads review by Paul on October 28, 2024

Not Koontz's best work! It’s an undeniable fact of literary life that, from time to time, an author’s past 5-star efforts lead to his work being held against the high standard of those successes as opposed to being compared more fairly with other authors who purport to compete in the same genre. VELO......more

Goodreads review by Chris on January 05, 2008

Usually people go on smoke breaks at work to take a break from their routine paper-pushing to talk all raw about chicks and cuss a lot. Thank god where I work I can do these things from the comfort of my desk, so when I go on a smoke break I can talk about things that actually take up to ten minutes......more

Goodreads review by Ms. Smartarse on December 16, 2021

Billy Wiles is a small-town bartender whose life doesn't include much beside the job. Sure, he'd happily nod along to his customers' crazy antics to earn his tip, but anything beyond that gets a polite but firm rejection. Yet despite his reclusive lifestyle, Billy catches the interest of a serial kil......more

Goodreads review by Maciek on September 27, 2010

Velocity is the essence of mass-market fiction. Billy Wiles, an everyman bartender finds a note under the windshield of his car - If he takes it to the police, a schoolteacher will die. If he doesn't, an old woman will be killed. Billy visits his cop friend and tells him about the note. The cop thin......more


Quotes

"Graphic, fast-paced action, well-developed characters and relentless, nail-biting scenes show Koontz at the top of his game."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Genuinely terrific."—Booklist

“Just in time for summer, Dean Koontz again delivers a top-notch thriller full of well-drawn characters and anxiety-spiked sequences.”—Chicago Tribune

“Koontz keeps the focus of Velocity tight…. Velocity will have readers turning the pages—and checking to make sure their doors are locked and bolted.”—The Associated Press