Jocko provides a lot of silly comedic relief. This plot line switches back and forth with Erica Five at home making friends with Jocko, the strange troll-like thing that had morphed out of Harker in the first book. Chameleon escapes the lab with Victor, who discovers Deucalion has activated the self-destruct mechanism and Hands of Mercy is about to blow up. We learn that Victor was developing this creature to help kill off the Old Race. It’s a strange bug-like killing machine blob that discusses itself by taking on the look of its surroundings, much like Predator. Another creature is also introduced, called Chameleon. The majority of the book follows Victor returning to the lab and confronting the Werner insect-panther thing. Warning: some may consider these spoilers coming up… And once again, Deucalion falls out of the plot while he’s off to the farm meeting the Dumpsters and old New Race members who have come back to life – including Erica Four. Sadly, our two detectives spend well over half the book just driving to the farm.

He contacts Carson and Michael and sends them to the farm, which is adjacent to the mass grave dump that played such a big part in Book 2.

Deucalion find his way into Victor’s lab and learns about Victor’s tank farms where he is going to mass produce New Race members. The book opens with the district attorney and his wife, both replacements from the New Race, going on a naked killing spree around their neighborhood. That’s probably why Koontz added two more books to the series in an attempt to redeem himself. This was originally supposed to be the end of a trilogy – and it indeed has a weak ending that gets wrapped up all pretty and nice in a matter of about 5 pages. At 352 pages, this was a much quicker read than the first two in the series that were each at about 450 pages.

Dead and alive dean koontz