Devoted, by Dean Koontz →

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 Woody Bookman is 11 years old and has not spoken a word. He lives with his widowed mother, Megan, but spends a lot of time in an imaginary world with virtual resources. His father was killed in a helicopter crash, and Woody uses the dark web to find out what happened.

Kipp is a Golden Retriever and one of a special few advanced dogs who can communicate with each other and even read. They hear each other’s thoughts on something they refer to as the wire. They call themselves the Mysterium.  If you have read Koontz’s “Watchers,” Kipp is very much the same character. Both dogs care deeply about their masters.

The plot seems to involve more subplots than needed. When Kipp’s caretaker dies, her estate and ownership of Kipp transfer to the former housekeeper, who is with us through the rest of the book, for some reason?

Multi-billionaire Dorian is the CEO of Refine, a multibillion-dollar division of his more giant conglomerate, and he has Lee Shacket running the company as COO. Everyone is killed except Shacket, who runs away and becomes a monster. Shacket had worked with Woody’s father before he died, and he remembers Megan and decides to go after her. After some grizzly deaths, he finds Megan and tells her saying. "I am becoming the king of beasts," boasting his new powers.

I thought the plot was messy. The violence might have been the book’s focus, but several things tried to be the focus. This book was a disappconsistentlynt for an author who has always delivered attention-grabbing plots and characters. If you want to read about a Golden Retriever who has everything going for him as Kipp does and gets a grand scheme to work with, read Watchers by Dean Koontz.