Review by curtisjw (2007-11-28)
This was the first Dean Koontz novel I read and the first book in a long time. Since then I have continued to read his novels steadily. This book moves along very well. What I really liked is that he did not introduce lots of new characters early on in the book, which makes it easy to follow the story line. It as a pretty good read, but since I have read other Koontz books I would rate this a 6 out of 10. (I recommend The Taking)

Review by nowirehangers (2007-01-28)
Here's another thriller from Koontz. The action starts immediately, no time wasted, when Mitch receives a phone call from kidnappers demanding two million dollars in exchange for his wife, and guns down a man walking a dog to prove they are serious. Mitch doesn't have two million dollars and has no idea what to do but wait for further instructions from the kidnappers. Things are of course further complicated by the fact that the police wants to talk to him regarding the dead dog walker, and he can't tell the police what he knows because then the kidnappers would kill his wife.

The story is a good one and it moves along nicely most of the time even though there's only one major plot twist. I have given praise to Koontz several times before for his ability to write good characters that you really get to know. You get to know their background and understand why they act and think the way they do. The same is true for "The Husband". However, this book is action driven rather than character driven and this is not as vital for the story as in some of his other books. Thus, if some of the parts that are there in order to give depth to the characters had been edited out or shortened, the story would have been tighter and the pace faster. For the same reason, I think this book is better suited to make into a movie than some of Koontz' other books, since many of the movies have failed to capture the understanding of the characters.

"The Husband" should please both old Koontz fans and new readers.