Devoted

 A new member of one of my book clubs was enthusing about books by Dean Koontz.  I had read recently that one of his latest featured a sentient dog, so I decided to give Devoted (#959) a try when I saw it at our local library.  I had also heard that his books can be rather strange.

That part was accurate.  I found this to be a "Jekyll and Hyde" type of book.  It veered between an interesting tale of an intelligent golden retriever named Kipp who is able to communicate with other dogs with similar capabilities telepathically, until one day he hears a young human boy calling out on the "Wire".  Woody Bookman is an autistic eleven year old who is also gifted intellectually, but he has never spoken a word aloud.  Investigating his father's accidental death several years prior, Woody hacks the Dark Web and triggers an unfortunate series of incidents.  So far, so good for this thriller, except for the sanctimonious preachy bits about the nature of good and evil.

Now for the Jekyll part.  The villains in this piece are beyond bad.  They are depraved, sadistic and disgusting.  I wound up skimming the parts of the book that dealt with them, they were so sick.  The only reason I stuck to it to the end was to see what happened with Kipp and Woody, and even that was a cop-out.  A glorious unspecified future to be had "someday".

I can't recommend this book to anyone, and I wonder after reading this, why Dean Koontz is such a popular author.   The "Ugh" factor tips the balance here. One and done with him.