Frankenstein: Dead or Alive, by Dean Koontz

From grandmother to neighborhood bully, to Antoine, to Evangeline, Bucky and Janet Guitreau went through the Arceneaux family like a school of angry piranha through anything that might piss off killer fish.

Synopsis: Victor Frankenstein, alive and well in modern-day New Orleans, is having a spot of trouble with his army of killer zombies. Also, his wife's adopted a half-human albino dwarf.

There's so much to say about a book I had to wait FOUR LONG YEARS for Koontz to get around to writing that it's hard to know where to start. Okay wait, I'll start here: I tore through this thing in an evening and a half, and cursed work in-between times. It was clever and visceral and deadpan funny, and sadly, I want O'Connor/Madison stories. And while I'd seen a couple of previous reviews label it as sort of meh, I have to say, I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Victor Frankenstein has set up camp in modern-day New Orleans, and is cranking out perfectly formed replicants to take the places of highly placed people around the city, with the aim of one day having his "New Race" eat and kill every last human being on the planet, while simultaneously chanting his name. A bit much to do all at once and with a full mouth, but you know, I admire his goal-setting.

Book 1 launched the idea and introduced Frankenstein and his original monster, now a tattooed 200-year-old monk, as well as Carson O'Connor and Michael Madison, two hardboiled New Orleans homicide detectives. Also, a portion of the book was narrated by a very determined severed hand.

Book 2! Things have started to go wrong: the replicants are experiencing difficulty staying with the plan (Eat humans, chant "Victor! Victor!", which just goes to show that if you're going to take over the world, you need really simpleminded replicants to do it) and there's O'Connor/Madison along with lots of my beloved placeporn.

Book 3! (This book.) I have to agree with the reviewer elsewhere on lj (whose name I have shamefully forgotten), that one some level, Koontz wrote this book because his agent scaled the fence and made it past the dogs and appeared on the front lawn with a sharp and pointy stick. "Four years, Dean! Contract!" But the best part of this is that Koontz appears to have taken out any frustrations he might've had at having to actually finish the trilogy by inserting snark whenever possible. This, for example:

When she reached the door, however, and turned around to gaze in at Arceneaux, her expression was convincingly that of a frightened and helpless woman desperate to find a strong man to lean on with her ample but perky breasts.

He's enjoying himself on some level, I maintain, and that makes it a better read for me. Also, he tosses in everything but the kitchen sink: mutant genetics monsters, shapeshifting mindless killers, Du Maurier's Rebecca, a sarcophagus filled with blood. It's quite an awesome lack of restraint.

The majority of this book, however, is dominated by the relationship between Frankenstein's wife and her pet albino dwarf, which, however wrong that sounds, is delightfully funny and touching all at one go. He's experienced four days of life as a reviled and hunted monstrosity, she's beaten and lonely and desperate for a child. It's an odd dynamic that Koontz pulls off with above-average flair.

My one complaint--I know, I have them every single time--is that the climax is not in the least climactic, and the main characters from the preceding books have basically been ordered on stage at gunpoint, which is less fun than you might think.

Still, highly recommended for fans of the macabre.