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    The City (with bonus short story The Neighbor): A Novel
    Unavailable
    The City (with bonus short story The Neighbor): A Novel
    Unavailable
    The City (with bonus short story The Neighbor): A Novel
    Ebook530 pages7 hours

    The City (with bonus short story The Neighbor): A Novel

    By Dean Koontz

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Includes Dean Koontz’s short story “The Neighbor”!

    This ebook edition contains a special preview of Dean Koontz’s The Silent Corner.

    Dean Koontz is at the peak of his acclaimed powers with this major new novel.

    A young boy, a musical prodigy, discovering life’s wonders—and mortal dangers.
    His best friend, also a gifted musician, who will share his journey into destiny.
    His remarkable family, tested by the extremes of evil and bound by the depths of love . . . on a collision course with a band of killers about to unleash anarchy.
    And two unlikely allies, an everyday hero tempered by the past and a woman of mystery who holds the key to the future.

    These are the people of The City, a place where enchantment and malice entwine, courage and honor are found in the most unexpected quarters, and the way forward lies buried deep inside the heart. Brilliantly illumined by magic dark and light, their unforgettable story is a riveting, soul-stirring saga that speaks to everyone, a major milestone in the celebrated career of #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz and a dazzling realization of the evergreen dreams we all share.

    Praise for The City

    “Beautifully crafted and poignant . . . The City is many things: serious, lighthearted, nostalgic, courageous, scary, and mysterious. . . . [It] will have readers staying up late at night.”—New York Journal of Books

    “[Koontz] can flat-out write. . . . The message of hope and depiction of how the choices you make can change your life ring true and will remain with you once the book has been closed.”—Bookreporter

    Acclaim for Dean Koontz
     
    “Perhaps more than any other author, Koontz writes fiction perfectly suited to the mood of America: novels that acknowledge the reality and tenacity of evil but also the power of good . . . that entertain vastly as they uplift.”—Publishers Weekly

    “A rarity among bestselling writers, Koontz continues to pursue new ways of telling stories, never content with repeating himself.”—Chicago Sun-Times
     
    “Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose. ‘Serious’ writers . . . might do well to examine his technique.”—The New York Times Book Review
     
    “[Koontz] has always had near-Dickensian powers of description, and an ability to yank us from one page to the next that few novelists can match.”—Los Angeles Times
     
    “Koontz is a superb plotter and wordsmith. He chronicles the hopes and fears of our time in broad strokes and fine detail, using popular fiction to explore the human condition.”—USA Today
     
    “Characters and the search for meaning, exquisitely crafted, are the soul of [Koontz’s] work. . . . One of the master storytellers of this or any age.”—The Tampa Tribune
     
    “A literary juggler.”—The Times (London)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateJul 1, 2014
    ISBN9780345545947
    Unavailable
    The City (with bonus short story The Neighbor): A Novel
    Author

    Dean Koontz

    Dean Koontz is the author of more than a dozen New York Times No. 1 bestsellers. His books have sold over 450 million copies worldwide, and his work is published in 38 languages. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania and lives with his wife Gerda and their dog Anna in southern California.

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    Reviews for The City (with bonus short story The Neighbor)

    4/5

    504 ratings43 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This book had me guessing and held my interest throughout. The narrative skipped back and forth between several view points, which I am not a big fan of. Both Jason and Sandra have secrets, lots of secrets. As the story unfolds, we learn the secrets little by little. As things are revealed, it casts each person in a new light, and casts doubt on them. Who is the bad guy here, and who is the victim? It was interesting to find out what really happened. Not at all what I expected from the beginning of the book.
    • 4/5
      D.D. Warren, Boston Police Department homicide detective, has a baffling new case. A young woman, a teacher, mother of a four-year-old girl, and wife of a reporter for the Boston Daily, has disappeared from her home. Her purse and phone were left on the kitchen table; there are no signs of struggle except, possibly, a broken lamp that shows no signs of being used as a weapon, nor are there other signs of struggle. The comforter from her bed and her nightgown are found in the washing machine, newly washed. Everyone agrees that if she had left voluntarily, she would never have left her child behind.

      Her husband is an obvious suspect. There's a registered sex offender, a young man the same age as the missing Sandy Jones, whose tastes might just stretch to the pretty young wife of the older reporter. Sandy's estranged father, Judge Maxwell Black, from Georgia, turns up a couple of days into the mystery. Jason Jones says that the Blacks abused Sandy as a child, and she certainly didn't have contact with her father after she married and moved to Boston with her new husband. And there's an eighth grade student at Sandy's school, who clearly has a massive crush on her, and who when Jason visits the school, attacks him, insisting that Jason has killed Sandy because she was investigating his very mysterious past.

      Oh, yes. Jason Jones has no paper trail older than five years.

      D.D.'s problem is not a lack of suspects, but too many suspects. And the evidence she has neither wholly supports murder, nor wholly supports Sandy having left voluntarily. The only possible witness is the four-year-old daughter, Rie, her certainly saw something--but questioning such a young child witness is fraught with risks.

      We get the story in several voices--D.D.'s, the sex offender Aiden Brewster, and Sandy Jones herself--from beyond the grave? Both Gardner's writing and the three narrators' reading make those voices distinct and compelling, as we follow the story to an ambiguous but satisfying ending.

      Recommended.

      I borrowed this book from the library.
    • 4/5
      Several characters, easy to understand/listen, tense page turner. As the plot unrolls, it becomes more and more fun. Again, DD Warren is not the primary character--writing style, I guess? I wondered about the function of the perv down the street in the plot...learned a lot about the pressure on those folks, but value added to the book--meh? Gardner does an outstanding job building tension.
    • 4/5
      This is my favorite one out of the 3 I have read so far. An intriguing story and twists and turns. A little different from the first two.
    • 4/5
      Lisa Gardner did a fine job of building tension in this book. I listened to the audio version and couldn't wait to get in my car to listen to more. She had a good number of suspects in the book and an interesting way of telling the story, where the main protagonist's first person narration was mixed in throughout the novel, a clever way of introducing back story, although it kind of gave it away to the reader that she was still alive. The novel was suspenseful and well constructed. The ending was a little bit of a letdown but definitely not enough to ruin the book. All together a fine effort by Lisa Garder.Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity
    • 4/5
      I was looking for a true procedural mystery, which this book isn't, but enjoyed it anyway. Told from many points of view, this draws out the mystery for longer than any book I've ever read. Three of the main characters have pasts that are explained only in small amounts, throughout the book. Enjoy!
    • 5/5
      I have always been a fan of Lisa Gardner but I had not read anything by her recently. Her latest book, The Neighbor, caught my attention and so off to the library I went. I loved this book! It was an excellent and masterfully written suspense novel. Jason and Sandra Jones are married with a four year old daughter and one night Sandra disappears. But they are not just your average couple. They both have secrets and Jason isn't talking to the police and he is the prime suspect. He is a very enigmatic character and the only thing I knew for sure as I was reading was that he loves his daughter. We hear from Sandra in the past, events leading up to the night of her disappearance. I thought I knew the ending 3/4ths of the way through but then changed my mind several times up until the very end. Gardner does an amazing job of giving parts of the story then moving to another character, and really leaves the reader guessing until the end. Lots of plot twists. Sergeant D.D. Warren, the lead detective on the case is a favorite character of mine and I hope she continues to show up in future Gardner novels. A must read for lovers of suspense novels.my rating 4.5 stars
    • 5/5
      Now THIS is how suspense should be written! Multiple suspects, well-drawn characters, mysterious pasts, clues pointing in all sorts of directions. The final surprise is revealed in the last couple of pages, and the book is almost impossible to put down in the meantime.
    • 3/5
      Mother, wife goes missing. Husband and sexual offender (neighbour) main suspects. Detective D.D. Warren investigates. Husband remote, cold. Cute 4 yr old daughter that both parents adore.Plot, writing style sustained interest all the way through. I felt character were a bit one dimensional not well portrayed. Background also did not seem well described except for the interior of the main characters house.
    • 5/5
      Nothing gets the police and media's attention faster then the disappearance of a woman from her home in the suburbs. Jason Jones works as a news reporter for the Boston Daily news. He comes home around 2 am to find his four year old daughter, Clarissa "Ree" Jane asleep in her bed but his wife and their cat Mr. Smith are both gone. Jason has no clue where Sandra is other then the fact that something bad has happened. The bed sheets have been stripped off the bed and there is a broken lamp on the floor. Detective Sergeant D. D Warren is called onto the scene. Warren feels an instant dislike towards Jason from the first moment she meets him. His lack of interest in finding his wife, brings up red flags for Warren. Also, There is something not quite right with Jason Jones. He seems too slick. The deeper Warren investigates she realizes that things are not what they seem at first glance.Another winner for Lisa Gardner. The Neighbor has all of the making for the perfect best seller. It has drama, intrigue, cutting-edge suspense and an ending that will leave you speechless. I kept trying to figure out who were the bad guys and which ones were the good guys and even I couldn't always tell. One thing I can tell you is that I loved this book. So much that as soon as I was done with it, I had one of my co-workers so curious that she begged me to let her borrow this book. The Neighbor is a great weekend read. Nothing gets the police and media's attention faster then the disappearance of a woman from her home in the suburbs. Jason Jones works as a news reporter for the Boston Daily news. He comes home around 2 am to find his four year old daughter, Clarissa "Ree" Jane asleep in her bed but his wife and their cat Mr. Smith are both gone. Jason has no clue where Sandra is other then the fact that something bad has happened. The bed sheets have been stripped off the bed and there is a broken lamp on the floor. Detective Sergeant D. D Warren is called onto the scene. Warren feels an instant dislike towards Jason from the first moment she meets him. His lack of interest in finding his wife, brings up red flags for Warren. Also, There is something not quite right with Jason Jones. He seems too slick. The deeper Warren investigates she realizes that things are not what they seem at first glance.Another winner for Lisa Gardner. The Neighbor has all of the making for the perfect best seller. It has drama, intrigue, cutting-edge suspense and an ending that will leave you speechless. I kept trying to figure out who were the bad guys and which ones were the good guys and even I couldn't always tell. One thing I can tell you is that I loved this book. So much that as soon as I was done with it, I had one of my co-workers so curious that she begged me to let her borrow this book. The Neighbor is a great weekend read.
    • 5/5
      Reason for Reading: I enjoyed my first Lisa Gardner book, last year's Say Goodbye, so much I wanted to keep reading her. Comments: Jason and Sandra Jones seem to have the perfect life. They've figured out the perfect way to raise their four-year-old daughter. Sandra works days and Jason works evenings, this way they can look after their child themselves. One night Jason comes home from work and finds his daughter sleeping safely in bed and his wife missing. The police start to investigate and find Jason's manner very odd, he's obviously hiding something or perhaps he's just hiding. He becomes their person of interest from the beginning but unlike most cases which start off with several suspects which are slowly dropped as evidence and alibis collect, this case starts with one suspect and slowly gathers more, such as the known sex offender five houses down the street and the middle school student genius who is obsessively in love with Sandra, and more until there are too many suspects to know who is telling the truth.Absolutely riveting book! I enjoyed this even better than my previous read by the author. I can certainly say I'll be going back and reading Ms. Gardner's backlist. This book gave me everything I want in a suspenseful mystery, twists and turns in plot, interesting characters and mostly: I only sort of figured out "whodunit" and that wasn't until near the end. Really not much more to say without gushing. The only thing that bothered me was the main detective's name was "D.D." Now this is just me but I've never met a woman who went around being called by initials and the fact that dd stands for 'darling daughter' in internet speak had my mind calling her that every third or fourth time her name appeared, strange but true. Unlike Say Goodbye, this book is not gruesome, there is a little violence of course but nothing that you can't read and eat at the same time. This was a page-turner, read in a weekend because you just can't put it down book for me. Mystery/thriller fans are sure to love this and if you haven't read Lisa Gardner before The Neighbor is a great place to start.
    • 4/5
      Jason Jones comes home to find his young wife missing and his 4-year-old daughter alone in their home. He immediately becomes the prime suspect along with a convicted sex offender living close by, a student his wife worked with, and his wife's father. There is lots going on with Jason Jones and his wife, Sandra. Both seem to have many secrets and this adds to the mystery. This is one creepy story. It starts out creepy and stays creepy! It is a fascinating read with quite a few surprises along the way. I was, however, disappointed by the ending. It just didn't seem plausible and didn't work with the rest of a great story.
    • 4/5
      I took Lisa Gardner's latest book The Neighbor with me on vacation. Well, rather I took it to kill time during the inevitable airport wait times. And I have to say, this new release from Random House Canada made the time pass pretty quickly!The Joneses are the perfect family. Young, pretty school teacher mom, bright precocious little girl, handsome, hardworking reporter father.Jason Jones comes home after a night shift, finds his four year old daughter alone and his wife Sandra gone. He does report it to the police. But when Sergeant D.D. Warren (featured in a previous book Hide) begins to investigate, the perfect picture starts to fade. Jason is less than forthcoming. In fact he seems to be hindering the search, rather than helping. And as D.D. digs further, she can't help but think that Jason is guilty. But their neighbor Aidan is a person of interest as well. D.D. Warren is an excellent female protagonist. She's quick, tough, with a smart mouth, but has a vulnerable side too. The story is told from different viewpoints - D.D.'s, Jason's, Aidan's and Sandra's - although her story is told in flashbacks to her past, so we are never sure if she is alive or dead. As a reader, we know far more of what is happening than the police do.Gardner keeps us on our toes. This is a fantastic psychological thriller that kept me guessing until the very end with a really, really good twist. Lisa Gardner started out as a romance writer, but has really come into her own as a suspense author. Guaranteed to keep you reading 'just one more page....'
    • 5/5
      Sandra Jones puts her young daughter, Ree, to bed and goes to her own bed. Then she hears a sound coming from the stairs...When her husband, Jason, comes home from his night shift job at the newspaper, Sandra is gone.Sgt. Det. D. D. Warren, last seen in Gardner's 2007 novel, Hide" knows that the spouse is always the prime suspect when the second spouse goes missing or is killed. When she attempts to interview Jason, he is uncooperative, almost nonshalant.Is it her husband, who is guilty for whatever happened to Sandra? Is it the neighbor, Adrian Brewster, whose room overlooks the Jones' bedroom and is a registered sex offender? Could it be Ethan Hastings, a 13 year old high school student with a crush on Sandra? Or, could it be a late comer in the story, Wayne Reynolds, a state police computer analyst who met Sandy at a school basketball game and has been meeting her for the weekly basketball games, since then?The story continues with Sandra's father, Judge Maxwell Black, entering the scene and demanding he be given visitation priveleges to his granddaughter. Sandra had no relationship with her father and had accused him of mistreatment.As the story continues, the reader is privileged to know the various character's thoughts and it is difficult to see who might be the guilty character.It is obvious that the author enjoyed writing this book and her sense of fun with the plot comes through. "The Neighbor" is a well written, fast moving story that would have made Alfred Hitchcock proud in the old TV days.
    • 5/5
      Very gone girl like. I really enjoyed this book, and kept turning the pages to get to the end. When a young woman disappear in the middle of the night, her husband becomes prime suspect. But as the detective dig deeper and deeper, both wife and husband seem to be hiding a troubled past.
    • 4/5
      A Great read told through 1st person memories and thought, but switching between which person. Lies & hidden pasts with no one really being who they seem until culminating in a ending that you really didn't see coming!
    • 4/5
      Loved this book till the end, and I couldn't really figure it out. Obviously missed something. A young mum disappears & the author takes us into the world of police procedure & the shadowy realms of criminality. The plot was great, all the different angles & characterisation. It really makes you think about the lives of those who have come into the criminal world and gives a taste of the thinking that may take place in peoples'minds. The idea of the complete shutdown to avoid all memories was displayed really well as the story moved along. The love and dedication shown to the daughter throughot was uplifting. She had her own little quirks and insights.
    • 5/5
      as the series progresses, it's becoming more complicated and convoluted. It's great! Kept me guessing until the end.
    • 1/5
      Dark characters. Didn't finish it. About a wife taken from her home, with the precocious daughter in the next bedroom. Husband unwilling to talk to police. Neighbor is prevent down the block, trying nit to get arrested.
    • 4/5
      Another great mystery by Lisa Gardner! This one focuses much more on D.D., but it is more about the suspects which is great by me. Kept me guessing until the end.

      **SPOILER ALERT**
      My only complaint - and this is not really a complaint at all, more a comment - is that having read Alone and Hide prior to reading this, I felt a little bit let down that Jason was a victim of child abduction/abuse which reasonably had continuing effects on his adult life, but since Catherine Gagnon, who featured in Alone and Hide was also a victim of child abduction/sexual abuse I was a bit disappointed that Lisa used the same type of victim. But if you read this as a stand alone novel you wouldn't even be aware of this issue.
    • 5/5
      What can I say? Another spectacularly tense must-read from Lisa Gardner. I was well over half-way through before I had any kind of idea about what on earth was going on, and all the way to the very end, the twists & turns kept me riveted to the book until the early hours of the morning. I read until I could read no more. An absolute page-turner.

      My only (slight) disappointment (it wasn't worth taking one star off for it) was that the ending seemed to unravel very quickly/suddenly. A bit more 'denouement' to put more 'meat' on the final parts of the book would have been great, but I'd definitely recommend this and can't wait to start the next one in the series.
    • 2/5
      The Neighbor
      2 Stars

      Disappointing - I expected more.
      The characters are unlikeable and the plot is thrown together haphazardly. The ending is completely contrived and makes very little sense overall.
    • 5/5
      This story was incredibly smart with all of its twists and turns. I honestly was not able to figure out what happened until it did! Lisa Gardner has mastered the mystery/thriller genre with this novel! She never fails to dive deep into her characters and let you feel raw emotion and wonder what you would do in the same situation. I really enjoyed this story because every page led to something new and different options to keep you guessing what in the world happens! This series is just getting better by the book!
    • 5/5
      This book had several an awful lot of suspects, but it really worked for me. Lots of people with lots of secrets.
    • 5/5
      This is the third book in the DD Warren Series. I must say the BEST so far. Very suspenseful, thrilling, and keeps you guessing. I loved how Gardner through in characters from "Say Goodbye" Once I heard the reference of "the burger man" I was like OMG, I know who he is!!!!!!!! And since I LOVED LOVED LOVED Say goodbye I got even more excited about this book.We are introduced to a nice normal typical Boston couple Jason and Sandra Jones. Jason is a local new reporter for the Boston Daily news and Sandra is a sixth grade Social Studies teacher. They have a four-year-old daughter Clarissa "Ree" Jones who has an orange cat named "Mr. Smith". The only thing that is out of the ordinary about this nice little neighborhood is the registered sex offender who lives five doors down by nobody knows he is a registered pedophile. Trouble starts brewing up when Jason comes home from work at 2am and discovers Ree asleep in her room and his wife Sandra missing. Jason checks the house and the backyard and Sandra is nowhere to be found. This worries Jason because Sandra would never leave their daughter alone. After a walk-through of the house, he discovers that the bed sheets stripped off his bed and that the desk lamp is broken lying on the floor. This is where detective Sergeant D. D. Warren enters the picture. Warren instantly finds a dislike towards Jason from the moment they meet. She feels there is just something not right about him. His lack of interest in finding his wife, and lack of emotion at all sends red flags everywhere. This is why Jason becomes the number one suspect in his wife's disappearance.Throughout the story we find out that one of the main characters was abducted as a child and molested by a pedophile for several years who is now trying to get the photos and videos taken of him back while ruining the porn sellers. We also meet a community judge who has dark secrets to (which I am not going to say because it will ruin the story for you), a middle school boy who is brilliant with computers and in love with Sandra Jones who also attacks Jason with his text book, his uncle the policeman who we later find out had a semi relationship with Sandra and was secretly stalking her. You must read the book to find out all the juicy scandals!Just when you think you have figured everything out, another twist or turn will come about and your left guessing again, what the heck happen to Sandra!Get the book you will not be Disappointed! :)
    • 3/5
      Basic soft thriller, with only a few plot holes. Good for doing chores around the house in preparation for putting it on the market. Apparently the main detective is a recurring character, so I will undoubtedly follow up with another audio for road trip fodder. I like this kind of book for that.
    • 2/5
      Just Ok, Suspense at the end. I really did not like this book very much in total.
    • 4/5
      This series is definitely a departure from my most recent cozy mystery binge. They are dark and heavy in a lot of ways. But I'm enjoying them very much. Tension is high, pacing is often quick and I get sucked into it.In this third installment I especially enjoyed the bits told by Sandy in her own words about the events leading up to her disappearance. The author was definitely skilled at knowing what to tell and when. I felt I had enough info to make speculations, but I never quite nailed it.I am definitely looking forward to the next on the series. Though I will definitely try to pave myself so I don't get through the series too fast and so I don't become over sensitive to the author's habits and patterns in storytelling.
    • 4/5
      For me the plot moved too slowly and locations too static to really get me interested, plus the main characters weren't very sympathetic. The author only revealed the plot at almost the end by which time I'd lost interest.
    • 3/5
      The Neighbor is a police procedural-cum-thriller with a bit of a difference. In brief, D D Warren, a tough-talking but attractive policewoman, tries to sort out the mess when a young mother mysteriously disappears from her own home in the middle of the night. Her handsome but oddly-behaving and enigmatic husband immediately takes center stage as the prime suspect, but the missing woman has a turbulent backstory, and other odd connections and entanglements lead to fresh suspicions being raised.The best thing about this book is its unpredictability. The worst thing about it is its predictability. How can that be? Well, the setup of the story is really quite fresh, with a progression of events and plot revelations that doesn't follow the conventions of the genre. But about three-quarter of the way through the book, there's an abrupt change of pace, and the book's climax is obvious well in advance of its consummation. Gardner's pacing and characterization are not bad, but she relies too much on technological detail to keep the plot moving at times. Her IT-savvy characters and their clever tricks don't come off very well; Gardner seems more an admirer of high-tech looking in than someone who really understands it herself, and much of the book will date rapidly.On the whole, though, I'd recommend this one. It's fun summer reading.