 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(May 2019) |
 First edition | |
| Author | Dean Koontz (as Brian Coffey) |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Suspense, horror |
| Publisher | Bobbs-Merrill Company |
Publication date | 1977 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 232 |
| ISBN | 0-672-52312-4 |
| OCLC | 22779029 |
The Face of Fear is a suspense-horror novel by American writer Dean Koontz, first published in 1977. It was originally released under the pseudonym Brian Coffey.
Graham Harris was once one of the world's foremost mountain climbers, until a fall five years earlier left him with a lame leg, a fear of heights...and a frightening psychic ability in which he can see murders as they are happening. Harris lives in New York City, where a murderous madman known as the Butcher has been mutilating young women. While he is giving an interview on live television one night, Graham senses the Butcher claiming another victim. When the madman realizes that Graham poses a threat to him he formulates a plan to kill the clairvoyant. While working late one night in his office building, Graham senses that the Butcher is coming to his floor aboard an elevator. With his girlfriend Connie at his side, Graham begins a long night of playing hide and seek to try to avoid the psychopath's grip, during which, Connie and Graham gradually run out of places to hide, and are eventually faced with a horrific ultimatum: either stay and take their chances with the Butcher, or scale the face of the building in the midst of a blizzard. Graham is eventually talked into facing his fear with the latter, with the Butcher shooting at them all the while. Eventually, the Butcher is violently killed in an incident involving a piece of machinery. Graham and Connie escape, but they soon meet up with Anthony Prine, who is the other half of the Butcher. (It is revealed that he and Bollinger had a quasi-Leopold and Loeb relationship.) Prine confronts them, but he is wounded by detective Ira Preduski. In the epilogue, it is revealed that Connie and Graham are engaged.
Graham has blue eyes, is thirty-eight years old, stands five feet eleven inches tall, and has "thick reddish-blond hair". He feels affection for Connie Davis, his girlfriend. His father, a successful publisher, died when Graham was a year old, and left him a trust fund. Graham took his stepfather (Evan Harris)'s last name when his mother, a cocktail waitress, was married to the man. Five years before the events of the book, Graham fell on Mount Everest, and his injuries included sixteen broken bones and internal injuries: up to current times, he has made three more attempts to climb Everest and has failed each time. He is the publisher of two mountain climbing magazines. Graham is a clairvoyant who has been helping the police in trying to find the Butcher, particularly Detective Ira Preduski: Graham feels that he himself has "a responsibility to develop and interpret his psychic talent". While being interviewed on Manhattan at Midnight by Anthony Prine, a two-hour interview program, Graham senses that Edna Mowry, the Butcher's tenth victim, is being killed, and then senses that she has been killed. He and Connie are chased through the "Bowerton Building", including sometimes scaling the sides of the building, before escaping the clutches of Frank Bollinger. After Bollinger is killed, they head back to Graham's house, where they are confronted by Ira Preduski and Anthony Prine (who none of them know is one half of the Butcher), surviving Prine's assault mostly due to Preduski shooting Prine in self-defense. By the end of the story, he and Connie have decided to get married.
Connie is Graham Harris's girlfriend and the owner of an antique shop. Thirty-four years old and a brunette, Connie has lived with Graham for eighteen months. "To Connie, there was but one obscenity, and that was the grave". Connie believes that helping and healing Graham is the most important thing in her life, and loves him more than she has anyone else, ever. "She was his (Graham's) doctor and nurse as well as his lover". Connie is chased along with Graham throughout the "Bowerton Building", escaping and fleeing with Graham to his house. Her life is likely saved by Detective Preduski shooting Anthony Prine in self-defense. By the end of the story, she and Graham have decided to get married.
Ira is a Manhattan homicide Detective, paired up with Detective Daniel Mulligan. He has brown eyes and a pale complexion, and described as being "quick to take blame for everything". He lived in the south until he was four years old, although his parents weren't born there, and then moved north with his parents. According to Ira himself, he hasn't found "the right woman". He is present at the tenth and eleventh Butcher murders. When Dr. Enderby suggests to him at the crime scene of Sarah Piper that the Butcher is two people and they are working together, he disagrees with Enderby, saying "I can't see psychopaths working together so smoothly and effectively". Anthony Prine is wounded at Graham Harris's house by Ira, who is shooting in self-defense, likely saving the life of Graham Harris. Ira seems to know at the end of the novel that Graham and Connie plan on getting married.
The host of Manhattan at Midnight, Prine also forms one-half of the Butcher. Prine murders Sarah Piper, the eleventh victim of the Butcher. He plans to cause chaos between all races and people in New York City, and then rise to power from the destruction. Born Billy James Plover and with a southern accent, he has mastered the ability to speak with or without a southern accent. Nine months after meeting Frank Bollinger, he felt he knew Frank better than he knew any other human being, ever. Anthony calls Charles Manson "a two-bit con man, a cheap sleazy hood". Waiting outside the "Bowerton Building" for Frank, he leaves after the time limit he and Frank agreed on passes, and drives by the building later, seeing the cops, and seemingly knowing what happened to Frank. Anthony goes to Graham's house, waits for him to come in, and shoots Graham in the back. He is wounded by Ira Preduski at the end of the book.
Frank represents the second half of the Butcher, assumed to be a detective, and is thirty-seven years old. He describes himself as an "admirer of William Blake's poetry", and after his first meeting with Anthony Prine he felt that they were twins. His doctor has told him that he is likely to die of hypertension (Frank exhibits extreme nervous tension). Frank kills the tenth victim of the Butcher, Edna Mowry. He chases Graham and Connie through the "Bowerton Building", and is killed when a road grader's driver chases Frank with the machine in self-defense. Frank runs away, but slips on ice and falls: the driver of the road grader is unable to stop the machine in time, and Frank is hit by the road grader's plow..... ..
First nine victims of the Butcher - The victims' (all women) professions: housewife, lawyer, sales clerk, model, two school-teachers, and three secretaries. Although all are raped before being killed, Dr. Enderby says they are only raped "To impress us" and also says "Sex isn't the motivating factor": perhaps supporting his opinion is the fact that there is no evidence of anal, genitalia, or breast mutilation (and there is also no evidence of lip or tongue mutilation, either).
Edna Mowry - Edna has green eyes. She works at the Rhinestone Palace as a stripper. Edna is the tenth victim of the Butcher (she is killed by Frank Bollinger), and is found having been stabbed many times (one a throat wound), with "a [plug] of flesh" having been cut out of her stomach, and is found nude at the crime scene.
Sarah Piper - The eleventh victim of the Butcher (Anthony Prine her killer), Sarah is a stripper at the Rhinestone Palace alongside Edna Mowry, who she says "was my best friend. She is described as a "well-built blond", and mentions to Graham Harris that "I do some light hooking...". Ira describes her as having a "soft Georgia accent". Sarah also says about Edna, "I was her only friend".
Dr. Andrew Enderby - He is the medical examiner at Sarah Piper's crime scene. In his fifties with thick hair, brown eyes, and a salt-and-pepper mustache, he suggests (correctly) to Ira Preduski that the Butcher is two people working together to commit the murders.
Billy- Frank's partner in killing women who fakes the big meal after the killing was done. Frank Bollinger also calls him "Dwight".
The story was adapted into a 2-hour TV movie of the same name that aired on CBS Sunday September 30, 1990. It starred Lee Horsley as Graham Harris, Pam Dawber as Connie Weaver, Kevin Conroy as the Butcher, Bob Balaban, and William Sadler. It was directed by Farhad Mann, with a teleplay by Dean Koontz and Alan Jay Glueckman.
The Shankill Butchers were an Ulster loyalist paramilitary gang — many of whom were members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) — that was active between 1975 and 1982 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was based in the Shankill area and was responsible for the deaths of at least 23 people, most of whom were killed in sectarian attacks.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a character created by the American novelist Thomas Harris. Lecter is a serial killer who eats his victims. Before his capture, he was a respected forensic psychiatrist; after his incarceration, he is consulted by FBI agents Will Graham and Clarice Starling to help them find other serial killers.
Francis Dolarhyde is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon, as well as its film adaptations, Manhunter and Red Dragon.
Hugh Leonard Thompson Murphy was a Northern Irish loyalist and UVF officer. As leader of the Shankill Butchers gang, Murphy was responsible for the murders of mainly Catholic civilians, often first kidnapping and torturing his victims. Due to a lack of evidence, Murphy was never brought to trial for these killings, for which some of his followers had already received long sentences in 1979. In the summer of 1982, Murphy was released just over half-way through a 12-year sentence for other offences. He returned to the Shankill Road, where he embarked on a murder spree.
During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, British security forces were accused by some of operating a "shoot-to-kill" policy, under which suspected paramilitary members were killed without an attempt being made to arrest them. This alleged policy was claimed to be most frequently directed against suspected members of Irish republican paramilitary organisations, such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). According to an 1985 inquiry by a team of international lawyers titled Shoot to Kill?, undercover security force units were "trained to shoot to kill even where killing is not legally justifiable and where alternative tactics could and should be used." The British government, including the Northern Ireland Office, consistently denied that there was ever a "shoot-to-kill" policy, stating that "like everyone else, the security forces must obey the law and are answerable to the courts for their actions."
The Limping Man is a 1953 British film noir directed by Cy Endfield and starring Lloyd Bridges, Moira Lister and Leslie Phillips. The film was made at Merton Park Studios and was based on Anthony Verney's novel Death on the Tideway. Endfield directed it under the pseudonym Charles de Lautour due to his blacklisting in Hollywood. Location shooting took place around London including The Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe.
Murder at the Gallop (1963) is the second of four Miss Marple films made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was based on the 1953 novel After the Funeral by Agatha Christie, with Margaret Rutherford as Miss Jane Marple, Charles "Bud" Tingwell as Inspector Craddock and Stringer Davis as Jane Marple's friend Mr Stringer returning from the previous film.
Hannibal is a psychological horror novel by American author Thomas Harris, published in 1999. It is the third in his series featuring Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the second to feature FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling. The novel takes place seven years after the events of The Silence of the Lambs and deals with the intended revenge of one of Lecter's victims. It was adapted as a film of the same name in 2001, directed by Ridley Scott. Elements of the novel were incorporated into the second season of the NBC television series Hannibal, while the show's third season adapted the plot of the novel.
Red Dragon is a psychological horror novel by American author Thomas Harris, first published in 1981. The story follows former FBI profiler Will Graham, who comes out of retirement to find and apprehend an enigmatic serial killer nicknamed "the Tooth Fairy". The novel introduces the character Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer whom Graham reluctantly turns to for advice and with whom he has a dark past.
Paul Priestly is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Mark Thrippleton, from 20 April 1989 to 1 March 1990.
Double Cross is the 13th novel in the Alex Cross series featuring Detective Alex Cross by James Patterson. It was released on November 13, 2007.
Johnny Zacchara is a fictional character on the ABC soap opera General Hospital and the contract role was portrayed by Brandon Barash from September 18, 2007 until May 3, 2013. He returned on December 5, 2014. He is the son of Claudia Zacchara and Gino Soleito. Until its reveal in 2012, he was believed to be the son of mobster, Anthony Zacchara, who turned out to be his biological grandfather.
Murder on the Blackboard is a 1934 American pre-Code mystery/comedy film starring Edna May Oliver as schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers and James Gleason as Police Inspector Oscar Piper. Together, they investigate a murder at Withers' school. It was based on the novel of the same name by Stuart Palmer. It features popular actor Bruce Cabot in one of his first post-King Kong roles, as well as Gertrude Michael, Regis Toomey, and Edgar Kennedy.
James Nesbitt MBE was a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Detective Chief Inspector who was best known for having headed the Murder Squad team investigating the notorious Shankill Butchers' killings in the mid-1970s. Working from the C Division headquarters at Tennent Street off Shankill Road, Belfast, he eventually caught most of the "Butchers" which led to their convictions. Having received a total of 67 commendations throughout his career, this is the highest number for any policeman in the history of the United Kingdom. In 1980, he was given the MBE "in recognition of his courage and success in combating terrorism".
Shed No Tears is a 1948 American film noir directed by Jean Yarbrough and starring Wallace Ford and June Vincent.
Will Graham is a fictional character and protagonist of Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon. Graham is also the protagonist of two film adaptations of the novel, Manhunter (1986) and Red Dragon (2002), and the television series Hannibal (2013–2015), which adapted various parts of the Hannibal Lecter franchise.
The Face of Fear is a 1990 American television film directed by Farhad Mann and starring Pam Dawber and Lee Horsley. It is based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Dean Koontz, who also co-wrote the teleplay with Alan Jay Glueckman.
Donald Arthur Piper is an American murderer and suspected serial killer convicted of killing two women in hotels around West Des Moines and Clive, Iowa in 1993 and 1997, but is considered a suspect in four other killings. For his confirmed crimes, Piper was convicted and sentenced to two life terms.