

After graduation in 1967, he went to work as an English teacher at Mechanicsburg High School in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. In his senior year at Shippensburg State College, he won a fiction competition sponsored by Atlantic Monthly magazine. He has said that he was regularly beaten and abused by his alcoholic father, which influenced his later writing, as also did the courage of his physically diminutive mother in standing up to her husband. Koontz was born on July 9, 1945, in Everett, Pennsylvania, the son of Florence (née Logue) and Raymond Koontz.

He has published over 105 novels and a number of novellas and collections of short stories, and has sold over 450 million copies of his work. Dwyer", "Leigh Nichols" and "Brian Coffey".

Koontz wrote under a number of pen names earlier in his career, including "David Axton", "Deanna Dwyer", "K.R. Many of his books have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list, with fourteen hardcovers and sixteen paperbacks reaching the number-one position. His novels are billed as suspense thrillers, but frequently incorporate elements of horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and satire. Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resource she has to save an endangered girl-as moment by moment, the terrifying threat of Edgler Foreman Vess intensifies.Dean Ray Koontz (born July 9, 1945) is an American author. At first her sole aim is to get out alive-until, by chance, she learns the identity of Vess’s next intended victim, a faraway innocent only she can save. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.Ĭhyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safety and self-respect. A self-proclaimed “homicidal adventurer,” Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse or limits, to live with intensity. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Forman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. Past midnight, Chyna Shepherd, twenty-six, gazed out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend’s family.
