77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz

About the book: The Pendleton stands on the summit of Shadow Hill at the highest point of an old heartland city, a Gilded Age palace built in the late 1800s as a tycoon’s dream home. Almost from the beginning, its grandeur has been scarred by episodes of madness, suicide, mass murder, and whispers of things far worse. But since its rechristening in the 1970s as a luxury apartment building, the Pendleton has been at peace. For its fortunate residents—among them a successful songwriter and her young son, a disgraced ex-senator, a widowed attorney, and a driven money manager—the Pendleton’s magnificent quarters are a sanctuary, its dark past all but forgotten.


But now inexplicable shadows caper across walls, security cameras relay impossible images, phantom voices mutter in strange tongues, not-quite-human figures lurk in the basement, elevators plunge into unknown depths. With each passing hour, a terrifying certainty grows: Whatever drove the Pendleton’s past occupants to their unspeakable fates is at work again. Soon, all those within its boundaries will be engulfed by a dark tide from which few have escaped.

Dean Koontz transcends all expectations as he takes readers on a gripping journey to a place where nightmare visions become real—and where a group of singular individuals hold the key to humanity’s destiny. Welcome to 77 Shadow Street.
 
First line: Bitter and drunk, Earl Blandon, a former United States senator, got home at 2:15 AM that Thursday with a new tattoo: a two-word obscenity in blue block letters between the knuckles of the middle finger of his right hand.
 
My Thoughts: I have read most of Dean Koontz' novels and have enjoyed them all to one degree or another. I was not disappointed with this one. There was a huge cast of characters, which usually keeps me confused but in this book that didn't happen. I contribute that to the fact that most characters were revisited quickly. I thought they were well developed and came to like them.....well most of them. The story was told in little vignetts moving from apartment to apartment, from person to person. This kept me wanting to know more, kept me turning pages. The monsters were drawn in words, I could just picture. The evil was a mixture of what I expected and something I didn't expect so that was fun. This was horror at its best.
 
One thing I found distracting was the robotic voice saying "Exterminate." "Exterminate." As a Dr. Who fan all I could picture were the evil Dalek's from the Dr. Who shows waving silly little arms rolling toward them. LOL
 
Quote: page 213 Overcome by abhorrence and detestation even in excess of what she had ever felt toward the Internal Revenue Service, martha was for a moment paralyzed. (This one had me laughing even in this serious moment. )

Challenges:
100+ Personal Reading Challenge