"THE FORBIDDEN DOOR".......ONCE AGAIN, JANE VS.THE NANO-BASTARDS.......

The Forbidden Door by Dean Koontz (2018)  We count ourselves among the legion of Koontz fans but he does seem bound and determined to wear us all out with this ongoing series of thrillers.....of which "The Forbidden Door" is # 4.........

              And yes, you do have to start at the beginning........to drink in the whole saga of rogue FBI agent Jane Hawk and her ongoing battle with the evil cabal of elites who've dubbed themselves the 'Techno-Arcadians'.....

               The 'T.A.'s as we'll call them, have permeated the highest echelons of government, law enforcement and big business.  Their goal......Utopia for the 1 per-centers who can appreciate it.....

                Lesser humans (or anyone whom the TA's deem a threat to them) face eternal mental enslavement and zombie-hood by way of injections of nano-bots.......those micro-minions, the little devils, go to work on setting up a web across victims' brains, dooming them forever to TA servitude.

                Our gal Jane's on to them, but the TA's have sent out legions of thuggish goons determined to track her down.......as well as her Achilles Heel, her little boy.  The tyke's hiding place has been discovered........so the new book details a Jane's breathless race to rescue her son before the relentless and vile TA trolls close in on him......

                Just as we were about to mumble to ourselves how repetitive this saga is becoming, Koontz finally juices up the story with a careening turn into all out, blood-soaked apocalyptic horror. And most satisfying, we might add. More than that, we dare not say.......

                 The flaws in these books, however, still remain. The pacing crawls with too much descriptive verbiage. You have plenty of time to ponder why the supremely efficient Techno-Arcadians hire a collection of borderline loonies to do their bidding.

                   One of the TA bounty hunters has even embraced nihilism to the max, believing everything around him is but an illusion.  And Koontz insists on dragging us through this guy's internal babbling in chapter after chapter. Come on, Dean......give us a break.

                    But still, "The Forbidden Door" marks a huge improvement over the last book.......and that new plot twist that introduces a jarring influx of rampant gore is a much needed shot of adrenalin........for both Jane Hawk and we of the Koontz faithful...........

                    4 stars for this one (****)......if Koontz can maintain this level for subsequent books, we'll strap in for the whole ride....