From “The Cooked Staircase”, Dean Koontz’s 3rd book in the exciting 5-book ‘Jane Hawk’ series.
Original digital surreal art: “Comin’ 4 Ya” by: rob kistner © 9/7/23
W isely concerned, smartly cautious, but courageously undeterred. “I could be dead tomorrow, or something worse than dead.” Jane Hawk intuits that her days may certainly be numbered, but until that is determined, she’ll not cease her personal war on the horrifying conspiracy that threatens the freedom, and what’s worse, the free will of millions. Dean has set a plot that challenges a fundamental Human question. Like a shroud of death unfurling across the country, a bizarre epidemic of murder-suicides is ever escalating. Is free will a verified conclusion, or simply a wishful illusion?
This scourge has claimed Jane’s husband. It’s also turned Jane into a rogue FBI agent, a fugitive relentlessly sought by both the government — and by the strange and murderous secret cabal behind this incomprehensible deviant plot. “Only the insane are perfect in their paranoia, and I’m far from perfect. Besides, I’ve work to do.” Jane understands what she is up against, but there is too much at stake to worry — or be frightened. Deploying every resource their maniacal nexus of power and technology controls, Jane’s enemies are determined to see her die, or make her wish she was dead. Dean now examine’s the will to live. Although being ruthlessly pursued, Jane is singularly focused on her prey — a cunning and twisted man of unimaginable wide spread influence, with an army of profoundly evil professional killers at his beckon call. Can madness truly be deterred, as reality becomes irreversibly blurred?
Propelled by her righteous fury and unwavering demand that justice prevail, Jane makes her way from southern Southern California to the snow-swept slopes of Lake Tahoe. “They won’t know I’m coming — until they do, much too late.” Our heroine is intent on confronting, head-on, the lethal forces arrayed against her. Dean focuses on the essence and mechanisms of fate. However nothing prepares her for the chilling truth, to which she comes face to face, descending the crooked staircase. Concealed here in this dark hell, is the dreadful place where her long nightmare was born. Do you believe we truly can, ever escape from where we began?
Original digital surreal art: “The Crooked Staircase”
by: rob kistner © 9/7/23
is free will a verified conclusion
or simply a wishful illusion
can madness truly be deterred
as reality becomes irreversibly blurred
do you believe we truly can
ever escape from where we began
*
rob kistner © 9/7/23
Poetry at: dVerse