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"Connections and Why They Matter"
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The definition of intensity is the quality of being very strong, concentrated, or complex, and the book has the correct title for sure.
Dean Koontz presents his novel, Intensity, with Chyna Shepard and Laura Templeton, two college students with a special bond, going to spend a weekend with Laura’s parents in Napa Valley, California. The first night they arrive, the serial killer invades the home, Engler Vess, who breaks in and kills Laura, her mother, father, and her sister and brother-in-law. After Vess kills Laura, he takes her body to his motor home, parked in front. Chyna, who has successfully stayed hidden, sneaks aboard the motor home and finds that her friend is dead, but before she can escape, Vess gets in and drives away.
Chyna hides in a back room of the motor home with Laura’s body. When Vess stops at a gas station to get gas, she sneaks out of the motor home, and while hiding inside the station, she hears Vess bragging to the gas station clerks that he is holding a young girl, Ariel, a prisoner in his basement. He had already decided to kill the two clerks and just wanted to see the expression on their faces when he told them about Ariel. He had brought his polaroid camera because he liked to take pictures of his victims when they were dead. After he leaves, she finds a key to one of the slain clerk’s cars and decides that she must try to follow Vess to his home to try to free Ariel.
Chyna follows the killer, who is on his way to the coast of Oregon. On the way, she decides to pass the motor home he is driving and speed ahead, then faking a crash, blocking the road with the car and then waiting for Vess to stop and investigate, enabling her to sneak back into the motor home and hide in the same room as before. Still, her presence is detected this time, but the killer pretends not to know she is there and heads for his destination.
Vess’s home is secluded deep in a wooded area. His two-story cabin is loaded with high-tech computer equipment, and the property is protected by a trained pack of Dobermans that will kill anyone attempting to get in or out. When they arrive, Vess goes into the home alone, signals the dogs to stand down, not show themselves, and waits. Chyna sneaks into the house and finds Airel locked in a basement room before she is confronted and chained up by the killer.
So far in the story, the intensity has never let up, as Chyna has had to deal with the killer. We wonder why she has followed him and how she could have believed she could make any difference. We learn much about Chyna’s days as a young girl growing up in dangerous situations, and we understand more about her toughness. When she is finally captured and chained up in inner strength, her intensity remarkably affects the plot.
The plot flows from the strong character traits of both Chyna and Vess. Both are intense, and the book has a great deal of energy, strength, and concentration and will hold you on the edge of your seat till the very end.
“Hunches [are] just messages from the subconscious, which [is] thinking furiously all the time and processing information we have not consciously noted.” ...
“But victimhood was seductive, a release from responsibility and caring. ...
“Human cruelty and treachery surpassed all understanding.”
