CW: body horror, violence, implied animal cruelty, discussions of suicide, DV, SA, murder, some others

If you start this book and think, ‘oh, it can’t get any weirder,’ you’re wrong.

200 years after the legend of Frankenstein and his monster, something evil prowls the streets of New Orleans. A serial killer lurks in the shadows, a mad scientist plots in the shadows, and a local detective finds herself in the middle of a nightmare she never expected.

First things first: you need absolutely no knowledge of the Frankenstein story (beyond the most basic ‘man makes a monster’ info that I think the majority of us already have) to enjoy this book. Are there some tidbits you might find more amusing if you have a background in the original science fiction novel? Probably. But it’s definitely not a requirement. Secondly: if serial killers, grisly murders, body-related horror, and the like are things you absolutely hate reading about, this book is not for you. It’s critical to the story and there’s no getting around it.

Putting those things aside, this book was absolutely phenomenal. It’s a murder mystery, it’s a psychological thriller, it’s an urban sci-fi…it’s a little bit of everything. And it’s *good*. The first 50% of the story is just buildup to the actual action, but it never drags. Considering very little actually happens in that first half, it goes surprisingly fast. I read the whole thing in about two days and found I couldn’t put it down. The second half of the book, the part where the actual action occurs? Insanely weird, super fast-paced action, and I loved all of it. It’s so twisted and kind of grotesque, but it never felt gratuitous or obscene. One of the characters does have a disturbingly twisted view on the relationship between spouses/partners, and it’s discussed at some length, but those scenes are not what I would call ‘open door’ scenes—we know in general what’s happening and that it’s bad, but we aren’t given a play-by-play.

The book shifts POV between chapters, so we end up following 4-ish main people, with bits and pieces of a few others here and there. The viewpoint shifts are clearly defined, so I didn’t find myself getting confused between characters, and the timeline doesn’t get so hazy that I couldn’t tell what was happening when. It’s a technique I’ve seen a lot of authors attempt with limited success, but I would argue that Koontz and Anderson have positively mastered it. We get to know the good characters, form attachments to them, and understand what they’re doing and why. We get to see inside the minds of the other characters and see what twisted logic they’re using for their respective plans. It was just incredibly well done and I loved getting to see all the different angles on the story.

Speaking of the characters, the banter! The humor! The authors managed to pack an incredible amount of dry humor and straight up sarcasm into this book and it was absolutely hilarious.

For all the things I loved about this book, I did have 1 major hangup. Two of the characters we meet are autistic. This is not the problem. The problem I had was with some of the language and how autism was approached. I don’t know how familiar the authors are with the diagnosis, and the book was published in 2005, before a lot of awareness was brought to the general public about how differently it can present in different people, so maybe that has a lot to do with it. The language never felt mean-spirited or malicious, but at times it felt incredibly reductive. Autism is not in my particular neuro-spicy wheelhouse, though, so I am by no means an authority on this.

On the whole, I loved this story. “Prodigal Son” is the first of 5 books in Koontz and Anderson’s ‘Frankenstein’ series, and I’m already itching to jump into book 2. It’s a good thing I already have a copy, too, because book 1 ends on a hell of a cliffhanger. If twisted, freaky, paranormal thrillers are your type of book, you need to pick up this series as soon as (humanly) possible.

Dean Koontz's Frankenstein (1) - Prodigal Son - Likewise Book Reviews

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