フィアンセがこん睡状態になり執筆への情熱を失った作家ビリーはバーテンダーとして静かな生活を送っていた。しかしながらある日車のウインドウに挟まれた一枚の紙が恐怖のゲームの始まりとなる。そこには「6時間以内にブロンズの若い教師か60歳台の博愛家のお年寄りの死を選べ」という理不尽な要求。そしてビリーの犯行と見せた殺人がメモとともに続いていく。
犯人の意図が見えない恐怖、そして選択をしないことを含めた選択により犯罪への関与を強いられていく精神的な攻撃。そして犯人の魔の手は「最初の怪我の心積もりはできているか」とのメモの後、ビリー自身にも及ぶ。精神的な苦痛と身体的な苦痛。誰がこのような凶悪で理不尽なことを。
段々と追い詰められていく焦燥感の前に時間が経つのも忘れてしまうというのは、正にこの本の為にあるような言葉と実感できるはず。
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Velocity: A Novel マスマーケット – 2009/6/23
英語版
Dean Koontz
(著)
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購入オプションとあわせ買い
Dean Koontz’s unique talent for writing terrifying thrillers with a heart and soul is nowhere more evident than in this latest suspense masterpiece that pits one man against the ultimate deadline. If there were speed limits for the sheer pulse-racing excitement allowed in one novel, Velocity would break them all. Get ready for the ride of your life.
Velocity
Bill Wile is an easygoing, hardworking guy who leads a quiet, ordinary life. But that is about to change. One evening, after his usual eight-hour bartending shift, he finds a typewritten note under the windshield wiper of his car. 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.
It seems like a sick joke, and Bill’s friend on the police force, Lanny Olson, thinks so too. His advice to Bill is to go home and forget about it. Besides, what could they do even if they took the note seriously? No crime has actually been committed. But less than twenty-four hours later, a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered, and it’s Bill’s fault: he didn’t convince the police to get involved. Now he’s got another note, another deadline, another ultimatum…and two new lives hanging in the balance.
Suddenly Bill’s average, seemingly innocuous life takes on the dimensions and speed of an accelerating nightmare. Because the notes are coming faster, the deadlines growing tighter, and the killer becoming bolder and crueler with every communication—until Bill is isolated with the terrifying knowledge that he alone has the power of life and death over a psychopath’s innocent victims. Until the struggle between good and evil is intensely personal. Until the most chilling words of all are: The choice is yours.
Velocity
Bill Wile is an easygoing, hardworking guy who leads a quiet, ordinary life. But that is about to change. One evening, after his usual eight-hour bartending shift, he finds a typewritten note under the windshield wiper of his car. 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.
It seems like a sick joke, and Bill’s friend on the police force, Lanny Olson, thinks so too. His advice to Bill is to go home and forget about it. Besides, what could they do even if they took the note seriously? No crime has actually been committed. But less than twenty-four hours later, a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered, and it’s Bill’s fault: he didn’t convince the police to get involved. Now he’s got another note, another deadline, another ultimatum…and two new lives hanging in the balance.
Suddenly Bill’s average, seemingly innocuous life takes on the dimensions and speed of an accelerating nightmare. Because the notes are coming faster, the deadlines growing tighter, and the killer becoming bolder and crueler with every communication—until Bill is isolated with the terrifying knowledge that he alone has the power of life and death over a psychopath’s innocent victims. Until the struggle between good and evil is intensely personal. Until the most chilling words of all are: The choice is yours.
- 本の長さ480ページ
- 言語英語
- 出版社Bantam
- 発売日2009/6/23
- 寸法10.64 x 2.67 x 17.42 cm
- ISBN-10055359317X
- ISBN-13978-0553593174
商品の説明
レビュー
"Graphic, fast-paced action, well-developed characters and relentless, nail-biting scenes show Koontz at the top of his game."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Genuinely terrific."—Booklist
“Just in time for summer, Dean Koontz again delivers a top-notch thriller full of well-drawn characters and anxiety-spiked sequences.”—Chicago Tribune
“Koontz keeps the focus of Velocity tight….Velocity will have readers turning the pages—and checking to make sure their doors are locked and bolted.” —Associated Press
"Genuinely terrific."—Booklist
“Just in time for summer, Dean Koontz again delivers a top-notch thriller full of well-drawn characters and anxiety-spiked sequences.”—Chicago Tribune
“Koontz keeps the focus of Velocity tight….Velocity will have readers turning the pages—and checking to make sure their doors are locked and bolted.” —Associated Press
抜粋
Part 1
The Choice is Yours
Chapter One
With draft beer and a smile, Ned Pearsall raised a toast to his deceased neighbor, Henry Friddle, whose death greatly pleased him.
Henry had been killed by a garden gnome. He had fallen off the roof of his two-story house, onto that cheerful-looking figure. The gnome was made of concrete. Henry wasn’t.
A broken neck, a cracked skull: Henry perished on impact.
This death-by-gnome had occurred four years previously. Ned Pearsall still toasted Henry’s passing at least once a week.
Now, from a stool near the curve of the polished mahogany bar, an out-of-towner, the only other customer, expressed curiosity at the enduring nature of Ned’s animosity.
“How bad a neighbor could the poor guy have been that you’re still so juiced about him?”
Ordinarily, Ned might have ignored the question. He had even less use for tourists than he did for pretzels.
The tavern offered free bowls of pretzels because they were cheap. Ned preferred to sustain his thirst with well-salted peanuts. To keep Ned tipping, Billy Wiles, tending bar, occasionally gave him a bag of Planters.
Most of the time Ned had to pay for his nuts. This rankled him either because he could not grasp the economic realities of tavern operation or because he enjoyed being rankled, probably the latter.
Although he had a head reminiscent of a squash ball and the heavy rounded shoulders of a sumo wrestler, Ned was an athletic man only if you thought barroom jabber and grudge-holding qualified as sports. In those events, he was an Olympian.
Regarding the late Henry Friddle, Ned could be as talkative with outsiders as with lifelong residents of Vineyard Hills. When, as now, the only other customer was a stranger, Ned found silence even less congenial than conversation with a “foreign devil.”
Billy himself had never been much of a talker, never one of those barkeeps who considered the bar a stage. He was a listener.
To the out-of-towner, Ned declared, “Henry Friddle was a pig.”
The stranger had hair as black as coal dust with traces of ash at the temples, gray eyes bright with dry amusement, and a softly resonant voice. “That’s a strong word—pig.”
“You know what the pervert was doing on his roof? He was trying to piss on my dining-room windows.”
Wiping the bar, Billy Wiles didn’t even glance at the tourist. He’d heard this story so often that he knew all the reactions to it.
“Friddle, the pig, figured the altitude would give his stream more distance,” Ned explained.
The stranger said, “What was he—an aeronautical engineer?”
“He was a college professor. He taught contemporary literature.”
“Maybe reading that stuff drove him to suicide,” the tourist said, which made him more interesting than Billy had first thought.
“No, no,” Ned said impatiently. “The fall was accidental.”
“Was he drunk?”
“Why would you think he was drunk?” Ned wondered.
The stranger shrugged. “He climbed on a roof to urinate on your windows.”
“He was a sick man,” Ned explained, plinking one finger against his empty glass to indicate the desire for another round.
Drawing Budweiser from the tap, Billy said, “Henry Friddle was consumed by vengeance.”
After silent communion with his brew, the tourist asked Ned Pearsall, “Vengeance? So you urinated on Friddle’s windows first?”
“It wasn’t the same thing at all,” Ned warned in a rough tone that advised the outsider to avoid being judgmental.
“Ned didn’t do it from his roof,” Billy said.
“That’s right. I walked up to his house, like a man, stood on his lawn, and aimed at his dining-room windows.”
“Henry and his wife were having dinner at the time,” Billy said.
Before the tourist might express revulsion at the timing of this assault, Ned said, “They were eating quail, for God’s sake.”
“You showered their windows because they were eating quail?”
Ned sputtered with exasperation. “No, of course not. Do I look insane to you?” He rolled his eyes at Billy.
Billy raised his eyebrows as though to say What do you expect of a tourist?
“I’m just trying to convey how pretentious they were,” Ned clarified, “always eating quail or snails, or Swiss chard.”
“Phony bastards,” the tourist said with such a light seasoning of mockery that Ned Pearsall didn’t detect it, although Billy did.
“Exactly,” Ned confirmed. “Henry Friddle drove a Jaguar, and his wife drove a car—you won’t believe this—a car made in Sweden.”
“Detroit was too common for them,” said the tourist.
“Exactly. How much of a snob do you have to be to bring a car all the way from Sweden?”
The tourist said, “I’ll wager they were wine connoisseurs.”
“Big time! Did you know them or something?”
“I just know the type. They had a lot of books.”
“You’ve got ’em nailed,” Ned declared. “They’d sit on the front porch, sniffing their wine, reading books.”
“Right out in public. Imagine that. But if you didn’t pee on their dining-room windows because they were snobs, why did you?”
“A thousand reasons,” Ned assured him. “The incident of the skunk. The incident of the lawn fertilizer. The dead petunias.”
“And the garden gnome,” Billy added as he rinsed glasses in the bar sink.
“The garden gnome was the last straw,” Ned agreed.
“I can understand being driven to aggressive urination by pink plastic flamingos,” said the tourist, “but, frankly, not by a gnome.”
Ned scowled, remembering the affront. “Ariadne gave it my face.”
“Ariadne who?”
“Henry Friddle’s wife. You ever heard a more pretentious name?”
“Well, the Friddle part brings it down to earth.”
“She was an art professor at the same college. She sculpted the gnome, created the mold, poured the concrete, painted it herself.”
“Having a sculpture modeled after you can be an honor.”
The beer foam on Ned’s upper lip gave him a rabid appearance as he protested: “It was a gnome, pal. A drunken gnome. The nose was as red as an apple. It was carrying a beer bottle in each hand.”
“And its fly was unzipped,” Billy added.
“Thanks so much for reminding me,” Ned grumbled. “Worse, hanging out of its pants was the head and neck of a dead goose.”
“How creative,” said the tourist.
“At first I didn’t know what the hell that meant—”
“Symbolism. Metaphor.”
“Yeah, yeah. I figured it out. Everybody who walked past their place saw it, and got a laugh at my expense.”
“Wouldn’t need to see the gnome for that,” said the tourist.
Misunderstanding, Ned agreed: “Right. Just hearing about it, people were laughing. So I busted up the gnome with a sledgehammer.”
“And they sued you.”
“Worse. They set out another gnome. Figuring I’d bust up the first, Ariadne had cast and painted a second.”
“I thought life was mellow here in the wine country.”
“Then they tell me,” Ned continued, “if I bust up the second one, they’ll put a third on the lawn, plus they’ll manufacture a bunch and sell ’em at cost to anyone who wants a Ned Pearsall gnome.”
“Sounds like an empty threat,” said the tourist. “Would there really be people who’d want such a thing?”
“Dozens,” Billy assured him.
“This town’s become a mean place since the pâté-and-brie crowd started moving in from San Francisco,” Ned said sullenly.
“So when you didn’t dare take a sledgehammer to the second gnome, you were left with no choice but to pee on their windows.”
“Exactly. But I didn’t just go off half-cocked. I thought about the situation for a week. Then I hosed them.”
“After which, Henry Friddle climbed on his roof with a full bladder, looking for justice.”
“Yeah. But he waited till I had a birthday dinner for my mom.”
“Unforgivable,” Billy judged.
“Does the Mafia attack innocent members of a man’s family?” Ned asked indignantly.
Although the question had been rhetorical, Billy played for his tip: “No. The Mafia’s got class.”
“Which is a word these professor types can’t even spell,” Ned said. “Mom was seventy-six. She could have had a heart attack.”
“So,” the tourist said, “while trying to urinate on your dining-room windows, Friddle fell off his roof and broke his neck on the Ned Pearsall gnome. Pretty ironic.”
“I don’t know ironic,” Ned replied. “But it sure was sweet.”
“Tell him what your mom said,” Billy urged.
Following a sip of beer, Ned obliged: “My mom told me, ‘Honey, praise the Lord, this proves there’s a God.’”
After taking a moment to absorb those words, the tourist said, “She sounds like quite a religious woman.”
“She wasn’t always. But at seventy-two, she caught pneumonia.”
...
The Choice is Yours
Chapter One
With draft beer and a smile, Ned Pearsall raised a toast to his deceased neighbor, Henry Friddle, whose death greatly pleased him.
Henry had been killed by a garden gnome. He had fallen off the roof of his two-story house, onto that cheerful-looking figure. The gnome was made of concrete. Henry wasn’t.
A broken neck, a cracked skull: Henry perished on impact.
This death-by-gnome had occurred four years previously. Ned Pearsall still toasted Henry’s passing at least once a week.
Now, from a stool near the curve of the polished mahogany bar, an out-of-towner, the only other customer, expressed curiosity at the enduring nature of Ned’s animosity.
“How bad a neighbor could the poor guy have been that you’re still so juiced about him?”
Ordinarily, Ned might have ignored the question. He had even less use for tourists than he did for pretzels.
The tavern offered free bowls of pretzels because they were cheap. Ned preferred to sustain his thirst with well-salted peanuts. To keep Ned tipping, Billy Wiles, tending bar, occasionally gave him a bag of Planters.
Most of the time Ned had to pay for his nuts. This rankled him either because he could not grasp the economic realities of tavern operation or because he enjoyed being rankled, probably the latter.
Although he had a head reminiscent of a squash ball and the heavy rounded shoulders of a sumo wrestler, Ned was an athletic man only if you thought barroom jabber and grudge-holding qualified as sports. In those events, he was an Olympian.
Regarding the late Henry Friddle, Ned could be as talkative with outsiders as with lifelong residents of Vineyard Hills. When, as now, the only other customer was a stranger, Ned found silence even less congenial than conversation with a “foreign devil.”
Billy himself had never been much of a talker, never one of those barkeeps who considered the bar a stage. He was a listener.
To the out-of-towner, Ned declared, “Henry Friddle was a pig.”
The stranger had hair as black as coal dust with traces of ash at the temples, gray eyes bright with dry amusement, and a softly resonant voice. “That’s a strong word—pig.”
“You know what the pervert was doing on his roof? He was trying to piss on my dining-room windows.”
Wiping the bar, Billy Wiles didn’t even glance at the tourist. He’d heard this story so often that he knew all the reactions to it.
“Friddle, the pig, figured the altitude would give his stream more distance,” Ned explained.
The stranger said, “What was he—an aeronautical engineer?”
“He was a college professor. He taught contemporary literature.”
“Maybe reading that stuff drove him to suicide,” the tourist said, which made him more interesting than Billy had first thought.
“No, no,” Ned said impatiently. “The fall was accidental.”
“Was he drunk?”
“Why would you think he was drunk?” Ned wondered.
The stranger shrugged. “He climbed on a roof to urinate on your windows.”
“He was a sick man,” Ned explained, plinking one finger against his empty glass to indicate the desire for another round.
Drawing Budweiser from the tap, Billy said, “Henry Friddle was consumed by vengeance.”
After silent communion with his brew, the tourist asked Ned Pearsall, “Vengeance? So you urinated on Friddle’s windows first?”
“It wasn’t the same thing at all,” Ned warned in a rough tone that advised the outsider to avoid being judgmental.
“Ned didn’t do it from his roof,” Billy said.
“That’s right. I walked up to his house, like a man, stood on his lawn, and aimed at his dining-room windows.”
“Henry and his wife were having dinner at the time,” Billy said.
Before the tourist might express revulsion at the timing of this assault, Ned said, “They were eating quail, for God’s sake.”
“You showered their windows because they were eating quail?”
Ned sputtered with exasperation. “No, of course not. Do I look insane to you?” He rolled his eyes at Billy.
Billy raised his eyebrows as though to say What do you expect of a tourist?
“I’m just trying to convey how pretentious they were,” Ned clarified, “always eating quail or snails, or Swiss chard.”
“Phony bastards,” the tourist said with such a light seasoning of mockery that Ned Pearsall didn’t detect it, although Billy did.
“Exactly,” Ned confirmed. “Henry Friddle drove a Jaguar, and his wife drove a car—you won’t believe this—a car made in Sweden.”
“Detroit was too common for them,” said the tourist.
“Exactly. How much of a snob do you have to be to bring a car all the way from Sweden?”
The tourist said, “I’ll wager they were wine connoisseurs.”
“Big time! Did you know them or something?”
“I just know the type. They had a lot of books.”
“You’ve got ’em nailed,” Ned declared. “They’d sit on the front porch, sniffing their wine, reading books.”
“Right out in public. Imagine that. But if you didn’t pee on their dining-room windows because they were snobs, why did you?”
“A thousand reasons,” Ned assured him. “The incident of the skunk. The incident of the lawn fertilizer. The dead petunias.”
“And the garden gnome,” Billy added as he rinsed glasses in the bar sink.
“The garden gnome was the last straw,” Ned agreed.
“I can understand being driven to aggressive urination by pink plastic flamingos,” said the tourist, “but, frankly, not by a gnome.”
Ned scowled, remembering the affront. “Ariadne gave it my face.”
“Ariadne who?”
“Henry Friddle’s wife. You ever heard a more pretentious name?”
“Well, the Friddle part brings it down to earth.”
“She was an art professor at the same college. She sculpted the gnome, created the mold, poured the concrete, painted it herself.”
“Having a sculpture modeled after you can be an honor.”
The beer foam on Ned’s upper lip gave him a rabid appearance as he protested: “It was a gnome, pal. A drunken gnome. The nose was as red as an apple. It was carrying a beer bottle in each hand.”
“And its fly was unzipped,” Billy added.
“Thanks so much for reminding me,” Ned grumbled. “Worse, hanging out of its pants was the head and neck of a dead goose.”
“How creative,” said the tourist.
“At first I didn’t know what the hell that meant—”
“Symbolism. Metaphor.”
“Yeah, yeah. I figured it out. Everybody who walked past their place saw it, and got a laugh at my expense.”
“Wouldn’t need to see the gnome for that,” said the tourist.
Misunderstanding, Ned agreed: “Right. Just hearing about it, people were laughing. So I busted up the gnome with a sledgehammer.”
“And they sued you.”
“Worse. They set out another gnome. Figuring I’d bust up the first, Ariadne had cast and painted a second.”
“I thought life was mellow here in the wine country.”
“Then they tell me,” Ned continued, “if I bust up the second one, they’ll put a third on the lawn, plus they’ll manufacture a bunch and sell ’em at cost to anyone who wants a Ned Pearsall gnome.”
“Sounds like an empty threat,” said the tourist. “Would there really be people who’d want such a thing?”
“Dozens,” Billy assured him.
“This town’s become a mean place since the pâté-and-brie crowd started moving in from San Francisco,” Ned said sullenly.
“So when you didn’t dare take a sledgehammer to the second gnome, you were left with no choice but to pee on their windows.”
“Exactly. But I didn’t just go off half-cocked. I thought about the situation for a week. Then I hosed them.”
“After which, Henry Friddle climbed on his roof with a full bladder, looking for justice.”
“Yeah. But he waited till I had a birthday dinner for my mom.”
“Unforgivable,” Billy judged.
“Does the Mafia attack innocent members of a man’s family?” Ned asked indignantly.
Although the question had been rhetorical, Billy played for his tip: “No. The Mafia’s got class.”
“Which is a word these professor types can’t even spell,” Ned said. “Mom was seventy-six. She could have had a heart attack.”
“So,” the tourist said, “while trying to urinate on your dining-room windows, Friddle fell off his roof and broke his neck on the Ned Pearsall gnome. Pretty ironic.”
“I don’t know ironic,” Ned replied. “But it sure was sweet.”
“Tell him what your mom said,” Billy urged.
Following a sip of beer, Ned obliged: “My mom told me, ‘Honey, praise the Lord, this proves there’s a God.’”
After taking a moment to absorb those words, the tourist said, “She sounds like quite a religious woman.”
“She wasn’t always. But at seventy-two, she caught pneumonia.”
...
著者について
Dean Koontz, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives with his wife, Gerda, and the enduring spirit of their golden retriever, Trixie, in southern California.
登録情報
- 出版社 : Bantam (2009/6/23)
- 発売日 : 2009/6/23
- 言語 : 英語
- マスマーケット : 480ページ
- ISBN-10 : 055359317X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0553593174
- 寸法 : 10.64 x 2.67 x 17.42 cm
- カスタマーレビュー:
著者について
著者をフォローして、新作のアップデートや改善されたおすすめを入手してください。
著者の本をもっと発見したり、よく似た著者を見つけたり、著者のブログを読んだりしましょう
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トップレビュー
上位レビュー、対象国: 日本
レビューのフィルタリング中に問題が発生しました。後でもう一度試してください。
2006年6月13日に日本でレビュー済み
Koontz2005年の作品、ナパ・バレーに住むバーテンダーを突然襲う理不尽な恐怖の物語です。
今回はお得意の「超常現象」は全く登場せず、前作にもましてごく普通のサスペンスとなっています。が、ことの起こりから顛末まで物語全体の組み立てが余りに唐突且つ適当で、題名が示すようなスピード感やスリルを味わうことが出来ません。また主人公の不幸な境遇はいかにもKoontzらしい設定で、よし来た!という感じなのですが意外にもあっさりと片付けられてしまい、感情移入も出来ませんでした。
万事適当なのがKoontzの持ち味なのですが、今回はそのいい加減さが足りないのではと考えます。然し、流石Koontz、本作も堂々のベストセラーです。
今回はお得意の「超常現象」は全く登場せず、前作にもましてごく普通のサスペンスとなっています。が、ことの起こりから顛末まで物語全体の組み立てが余りに唐突且つ適当で、題名が示すようなスピード感やスリルを味わうことが出来ません。また主人公の不幸な境遇はいかにもKoontzらしい設定で、よし来た!という感じなのですが意外にもあっさりと片付けられてしまい、感情移入も出来ませんでした。
万事適当なのがKoontzの持ち味なのですが、今回はそのいい加減さが足りないのではと考えます。然し、流石Koontz、本作も堂々のベストセラーです。
2007年8月20日に日本でレビュー済み
S.Kingとならんで少し気味の悪い本を書くDean Koontzの作品。今回はサイコパス(精神病質者)に脅かされ続ける青年のお話。カルフォルニアの片田舎、ビリーは作家を志していたが恋人がある事故をきっかけに昏睡に陥って以来、創作意欲を喪失し、町の小さなバーの夜勤のバーテンダーをし、家に帰ればTVも見ず木彫りにふけるような引きこもり生活を過ごしている。ある夜、仕事を終えて車のもとに帰るとメモがワイパーに挟んである。
「もしもこのメモを警察に届ければ、美人のブロンドの小学校教師を殺す。またもしも届けなければチャリティで活動している年配の女を殺す。6時間の間に決めろ。決めるのはお前だ」 最初は冗談と思っていたが、とりあえず友人の警官に相談すると、友人は根拠のないイタズラで騒いでは自分の評価にかかわるのを恐れてこれを取り上げない。すると予告通りブロンドの小学校教師が殺され、さらに相談した友人の警官も殺される、まるでビリーが殺したかのように。さらに第二、第三の殺人が続く。犯人はビリーの動きを完全に察知しており、ビリー自身、犯人から釣り針を額に縫いこまれたり、掌に長釘を打ち込まれたりする。警察の疑いがビリーの周辺にのびてくる間に、犯人の執拗さはサディスティックにエスカレートし、昏睡中の恋人にも危機がせまる。誰が犯人で何の目的で?
途中でビリーのトラウマティックな親殺しのエピソードが語られますが、実はこれ、Koontzの他の作品にもでてくる彼の実体験。従いまして哀れな恋人を守るためにビリーが目に見えぬ敵に勇敢に立ち向かうスカッとした感じではなく、ややネグライのです。ハラハラはさせられますが、いろいろあった末のエンディングにも100%「あー良かったね」とはいえない読後感が残ります。
「もしもこのメモを警察に届ければ、美人のブロンドの小学校教師を殺す。またもしも届けなければチャリティで活動している年配の女を殺す。6時間の間に決めろ。決めるのはお前だ」 最初は冗談と思っていたが、とりあえず友人の警官に相談すると、友人は根拠のないイタズラで騒いでは自分の評価にかかわるのを恐れてこれを取り上げない。すると予告通りブロンドの小学校教師が殺され、さらに相談した友人の警官も殺される、まるでビリーが殺したかのように。さらに第二、第三の殺人が続く。犯人はビリーの動きを完全に察知しており、ビリー自身、犯人から釣り針を額に縫いこまれたり、掌に長釘を打ち込まれたりする。警察の疑いがビリーの周辺にのびてくる間に、犯人の執拗さはサディスティックにエスカレートし、昏睡中の恋人にも危機がせまる。誰が犯人で何の目的で?
途中でビリーのトラウマティックな親殺しのエピソードが語られますが、実はこれ、Koontzの他の作品にもでてくる彼の実体験。従いまして哀れな恋人を守るためにビリーが目に見えぬ敵に勇敢に立ち向かうスカッとした感じではなく、ややネグライのです。ハラハラはさせられますが、いろいろあった末のエンディングにも100%「あー良かったね」とはいえない読後感が残ります。
他の国からのトップレビュー
Vitaliy
5つ星のうち5.0
Dang Right It's Good
2024年3月7日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
This is my first book from this author and I gotta say... this is exactly what I'm looking for. Not only is the writing and story GREAT, but the pace in which he wrote is what I have been craving. Too many authors out there fill their books with useless information and origin stories just to make their books larger and look more like a novel. Dean wrote information that is NEEDED and will not be forgotten as you read the book. He doesn't fill your head with info that's boring, he fills it with adrenaline and speed. Velocity is the perfect name for this book. It's fast and runs with SPEED. This is the style in which I write in, and I'm happy that I found an author who shares that SPEED. Great book with a unique spin on crime. Absolutely loved it!
Amanda Jolley
5つ星のうち5.0
Riveting read.
2022年5月11日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Great storyline, twists and turns. Couldn't put the book down. Can't wait to start a new Dean Koontz book. I am now a fan.
Abhishek Kumar
5つ星のうち5.0
Excellent.
2022年1月30日にインドでレビュー済みAmazonで購入
The book started like a trace of bullet just like the title and i have a hard time to put it down easily so beware if you have lots of the time then only you start reading it. The plot of the book was good and so was the pratogonist who was very much likeable.
Teanna
5つ星のうち5.0
Best book ever
2019年4月20日にカナダでレビュー済みAmazonで購入
By far one of the best books I have ever read ! I read it about 7 years ago and was telling my friend about it as a read. Had to restart it because she wanted me to read it to her whenever we were together. She now owns it too! Had to repurchase it after seeing it in the library.
Laura tonini
5つ星のうち5.0
Ok
2020年4月30日にイタリアでレビュー済みAmazonで購入
È un libro l’ho usato per leggerlo, non capisco a volte le domande assurde sulle recensioni, tutto ok