 First edition | |
| Author | Dean Koontz |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Don Brautigam |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
Publication date | 1989 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 383 |
| ISBN | 0-399-13390-9 |
| OCLC | 20672877 |
Midnight is a novel by American writer Dean Koontz. It was published in 1989. The book is a cross-genre novel. It includes aspects of suspense, science fiction, love story, and horror.
As with many Koontz books, Midnight is divided into parts. Part One: Along the Night Coast, contains chapters one through fifty-seven. Part Two: Daybreak in Hades, contains thirty-seven chapters, but is similar to Part One in that it begins with its own 'Chapter One'. Part Three: The Night Belongs To Them, follows suit, begins with its own Chapter One, and has forty-one chapters.
Midnight was Dean Koontz's first No. 1 hardcover on the New York Times bestseller list. [1]
Midnight includes a mixture of plots from the 1950s film Invasion of the Body Snatchers and H.G. Wells' tale The Island of Dr. Moreau . Koontz mentions both of these later in the novel. [2]
Janice Capshaw is pursued and killed by a pack of mysterious, nightmarish beasts while on a nighttime jog along the beach of her northern California home of Moonlight Cove. Sam Booker, an undercover FBI agent, arrives in Moonlight Cove to investigate the recent rash of suspicious deaths, including that of Capshaw. Tessa Jane Lockland, sister of Capshaw, also arrives in Moonlight Cove to investigate her sister's death.
Chrissie Foster, an eleven-year-old girl who lives on a farm north of town, accidentally witnesses her parents in a physically altered state - part-human and part-beast - and is forced to flee for her life. She heads towards town to seek help.
Sam, Tessa and Chrissie are all separately hunted by the mysterious beasts. Sam and Tessa meet by chance in a laundromat where they have both retreated after being stalked by the beasts. Mistrustful of one another at first, they realize that to survive they must work together.
Sam discovers that Thomas Shaddack, a brilliant computer scientist, is converting the citizens of Moonlight Cove into something unexplained. Sam also learns that the local police are aiding Shaddack in the conversions and that their state-of-the-art computer system, given to them by Shaddack’s company, is unnecessarily sophisticated for the needs of a small town police force.
Because of a letter sent to the FBI by Moonlight Cove resident, Harry Talbot, offering information about the recent disturbing events, Sam and Tessa decide to go to Harry at his place of residence. Harry is a Vietnam vet, who was badly injured in the war and now uses a wheelchair. He has not yet been ‘converted’. Because he spends most of his time watching the people of Moonlight Cove through his telescope, Harry has learned a great deal about what is going on and also learns that the local police are involved.
Chrissie also ends up at Harry Talbot’s, after her attempt to approach the local church ends with her having to evade the beasts again, and she makes the reasoned guess that Harry may be a safe person to approach.
Together, the four protagonists piece together more fully the story behind the happenings of Moonlight Cove. Thomas Shaddack has created a means whereby a person can be converted into a super-human - no longer susceptible to illness, injury, fatigue, or emotion. But the conversion has an unforeseen side-effect: stripped of the capacity to feel human emotion, life becomes intolerably meaningless, and most of the newly converted townspeople regress irresistibly into a beast state, concerned only with hunting, killing and consuming their prey.
As events unfold, Shaddack descends further into madness. He refuses to acknowledge that his plans have gone terribly wrong and that the conversions should be stopped. Seeing that nothing can stop the town's descent into chaos, the Chief of Police, Loman Watkins, vows to kill Shaddack, which will also kill every converted person in the community: as part of the 'conversions', Shaddack has placed a microchip inside each person that will kill them if Shaddack’s heart ceases to beat.
The final showdown takes place at the local high school, after Sam heads there to use a school computer terminal to get a warning to the outside world and request assistance. Shaddack is killed in the confrontation, which kills most of the populace with him. Sam, Tessa and Chrissie survive and the FBI arrive to clean up the mess.
Dean Ray Koontz is an American author. His novels are billed as suspense thrillers, but frequently incorporate elements of horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and satire. Many of his books have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list, with fourteen hardcovers and sixteen paperbacks reaching the number-one position. Koontz wrote under a number of pen names earlier in his career, including "David Axton", "Deanna Dwyer", "K.R. Dwyer", "Leigh Nichols" and "Brian Coffey". He has published over 105 novels and a number of novellas and collections of short stories, and has sold over 450 million copies of his work.
Jack Leon Ruby (born Jacob Leon Rubenstein; was an American nightclub owner and alleged associate of the Chicago Outfit who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald was accused of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Dallas jury found Ruby guilty of murdering Oswald and sentenced him to death. Ruby's conviction was later appealed, and he was to be granted a new trial; however, he became ill in prison and died of a pulmonary embolism from lung cancer on January 3, 1967.
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Chrissie Watts is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Tracy-Ann Oberman. She first appeared on 29 April 2004 and transpired to be the second wife of the show's "most enduring character", Den Watts - thus ended up becoming a prominent regular for the next 18 months. In 2005, Chrissie was the focus of one of "the programme's biggest and most high-profile narratives" when she murdered her husband in self-defence at the end of the special 20th anniversary episode. The broadcast, airing on 18 February, was watched by 14.34 million people - with "almost 60% of possible viewers" tuning in to see Chrissie killing Den. The character was credited by former head of BBC Drama Serials, Mal Young, as "anchoring the success of the anniversary storyline", and was described on the news programme BBC Breakfast as the "centrepiece" of the show, with the on-screen drama playing out over the course of the year and culminating in Chrissie's departure on 9 December 2005.
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Watchers is a 1988 science fiction horror film directed by Jon Hess and starring Corey Haim, Michael Ironside, Barbara Williams and Lala Sloatman. It is loosely based on the 1987 novel Watchers by Dean R. Koontz.
Velocity is a novel by Dean Koontz first published in 2005. Set in Napa County, California, it is about a man in his thirties who takes the law into his own hands when, out of the blue, he is threatened by an anonymous adversary. The "words of wisdom" with which the novel is interspersed are direct quotations from the writings of T. S. Eliot.
Intensity is a 1997 American television psychological thriller film directed by Yves Simoneau, and starring John C. McGinley, Molly Parker, Piper Laurie, and Tori Paul. Based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Dean Koontz, it focuses on a young woman who accompanies her friend home for Thanksgiving, only to be met by a violent serial killer.
Watchers is a 1987 suspense novel by American author Dean Koontz. Along with Strangers, Lightning, and Midnight, Watchers is credited with establishing Koontz's status as a best-selling author.
Fear Nothing is a novel released in 1998 by the best-selling author Dean Koontz. The book is the first installment in what is reported to be a three-part series of books, known as the Moonlight Bay Trilogy, featuring Christopher Snow, who suffers from the rare disease called XP. The second in the trilogy, Seize the Night, was released in 1999. No release date has yet been set for the release of the third book titled Ride the Storm. Fear Nothing is in several ways a successor to 1987 Koontz novel Watchers.
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Phantoms is a 1998 American science fiction horror film adapted from Dean Koontz's 1983 novel of the same name. Directed by Joe Chappelle with a screenplay by Koontz, the film stars Peter O'Toole, Rose McGowan, Joanna Going, Liev Schreiber, Ben Affleck, Nicky Katt and Clifton Powell. The film takes place in the peaceful town of Snowfield, Colorado, where something evil has wiped out the community. It is up to a group of people to stop it or at least get out of Snowfield alive.
Odd Hours is the fourth novel in the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz. It was released on May 20, 2008.
Chrissie White is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera Emmerdale, played by Louise Marwood. She made her first screen appearance on 23 October 2014. The character and casting was announced on 4 October 2014. The character was the fiancé of established character Robert Sugden, who announced the character to return to the series after five years. Her storylines have included: her turbulent relationship and later marriage to Robert; being caught up in a raid at Home Farm organised by Robert; defending her teenage son Lachlan when it is revealed that he sexually assaulted Alicia Metcalfe ; discovering that Robert has been having an affair with Aaron Livesy ; accidentally causing a helicopter crash which killed multiple residents; discovering that Lawrence is not her biological father; embarking on a relationship with Robert's adoptive brother Andy, which ended with Chrissie fitting up and destroying Andy for Lawrence's attempted murder when Lachlan shoots him after discovering that Andy had cheated on her; and her intense feud with her younger sister Rebecca. Chrissie was killed-off, alongside Lawrence, in a previously unannounced departure on 11 January 2018, after being involved in a car accident involving the entire White family caused by Lachlan.
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Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman, was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment on March 13, 2020, when at least seven police officers forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing operations. Three Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers—Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove—were involved in the shooting. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was inside the apartment with her when the plainclothes officers knocked on the door and then forced entry. The officers said that they announced themselves as police before forcing entry, but Walker said he did not hear any announcement, thought the officers were intruders, and fired a warning shot at them. The shot hit Mattingly in the leg, and the officers fired 32 shots in return. Walker was unhurt but Taylor, who was behind Walker, was hit by six bullets and died. During the incident, Hankison moved to the side of the apartment and shot 10 bullets through a covered window and glass door. According to police, Taylor's home was never searched.