A long long time ago, one of my teachers (Mrs. Barnes, whom I loved) figured out I was devouring horror novels and recommended Dean R. Koontz's Darkfall, which she had just finished. I remember reading it and loving it, and I recently found a used copy I evidently bought someplace and forgot about. While it still remains one of my favorite books of his (and indeed, one of the very few where the supernatural actually plays a part, instead of technology), there are a couple of things that stand out like a sore thumb in this era.
We open on widower Officer Jack's daughter Penny as she hears noises under her bed. Being inquisitive, she sticks a plastic wiffle ball bat under the bed, only to find it dented and clawed when she pulls it out.
We then rejoin her father and his partner Rebecca as they investigate a series of gangland murders that don't look like normal NYC mafia hits. Indeed, the victims appear to be chewed to death, often behind closed and locked doors. Jack is very forthright and honest, Rebecca is very closed off. But Jack is in love with her, and she's...undecided. She also criticizes him as being excessively open minded due to him investigating the possible Voodoo angle of the investigation. (The only suspect is Baba Lavelle, a Haitian who appears to be ghost like, due to no one being able to find him.)
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that Voodoo (here, more fantastical than what you find in real practices....while it would appear that Koontz did some reading up on the subject, by the end we've hit a few tropes) works, and Lavelle has cracked the Gates of Hell open to create murder poppets. As Jack finds out via good Voodoo Houngon Carver Hampton, Jack is a Righteous man, and therefore protected by the Rada from the Congo and Petro deities Lavelle is working with.
That immunity doesn't extend to Rebecca, Davey, and Penny, however, so by the time the climax rolls around, Rebecca and the kids are running around the Upper West Side trying to find a safe harbor from the murder poppets while Jack and Carver go to confront Lavelle and keep the gates from swinging wide open.
As a book, it holds up well. I found myself caught up in the chase, and feeling very involved with the characters and their problems. However, since I mentioned tropes above, I should point out this one has two very blatant Magical Negros running around. And of course, the main characters are all lily white and being sucked into the underworld of black magic! *gasp* I mean, as a product of its time, it's a very good read, but like many books, time tends to make things frowned upon today become much more visible.
I'd still read it again, though.
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