Velocity

By Dean Koontz

“If you don’t take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours.”

This is the note that Billy Wile, a hardworking bartender who leads a quiet, ordinary life in a small California town, finds under his windshield wiper one night after work. Billy takes the note Lanny Olson, a friend on the police force, who advices Billy to go home and forget about it; both deciding it is a sick joke.

Less than twenty-four hours later, a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered and Billy he realises that his indecision has caused a woman to be killed, since he didn’t convince the police to get involved.

The next day he gets a second note with another deadline and another ultimatum. This time giving him even less time to decide his choices. Suddenly Billy’s average, seemingly innocuous life takes on the dimensions and speed of an accelerating nightmare as the notes are coming faster, the deadlines growing tighter and the killer becoming bolder; he even murders a man in Billy’s bathroom as a clueless Billy sits in a rocking chair out on the porch.

Billy’s life takes on nightmarish overtones when he is captured and tortured by the madman. He is told that the death of the final victim will lead him to commit suicide.

The only person who gives his life meaning is his comatose fiancée, Barbara. Several weeks before their marriage, she developed botulism poisoning and has been in a coma for the last four years. Now Billy has the task of making sure that he is not framed for the various murders and the task of keeping Barbara safe. Billy must carefully analyse who might be the psycho murderer and his reasons.

The plot is well thought-out and executed, though the ending is a little far fetched; a very good novel that keeps you on your toes.