This was my introduction to Dean Koontz, and it was a wild ride. I went into it pretty blind, knowing only that it uses a home invasion as the catalyst for its plot. The reading experience felt like watching a horror movie in a theater, all darkness and tense music and the unrelenting urge to scream at the heroine on-screen. There are shades of Don’t Breathe and even Jeepers Creepers—though there’s nothing supernatural at play—here, and I did scream at my Kindle more than once. There were times when I wasn’t sure whether I liked this book or not. But I never considered leaving it unread. I had to know what happened.

In Edgler Vess (names in this book aren’t great), Koontz creates a villain who is genuinely scary, if unfortunately prone to quoting the title of the book in a way that made me imagine him leering through the fourth wall. But what struck me about him, about this book, that makes it so different from today’s thrillers, is that he is strictly a villain. Though Koontz takes pains to show how seamlessly Vess integrates into society, he doesn’t make him sympathetic. He doesn’t take the antihero route. You never falter in rooting for the heroine, Chyna (not the late pro wrestler... I told you the names in this book are pretty bad).

In that way, Vess never turns into a wry commentary on society. Koontz doesn’t hint that any of us could be Vess in secret, or that all of us partially are, and while the book’s scares do rely somewhat on the idea that we could encounter a Vess, so too does it rely on the triumph of good over evil. It’s the most optimistic thriller I’ve ever read.

Is that a naïve flaw? Or does it suggest that the world has gotten much darker, readers much more pessimistic (and perhaps nihilistic) since 1995? (I would say probably so, but I was 7 at the time, so most things were rosier and less complicated for me then.)

Either way, I don’t regret deciding to try Dean Koontz, and I’ll probably read more of his books.