4.1
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38,109 ratings
Benny is so nice they feel compelled to destroy him, but he has a friend who should scare the hell out of them in this breathtaking new kind of thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense Dean Koontz.
Benny Catspaw’s perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée, and his favorite chair. He’s not paranoid. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn’t know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he’s never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time.
How strange―though it’s a blessing, his uncle promises. Stranger yet is what’s inside the crate. He’s a seven-foot-tall self-described “bad weather friend” named Spike whose mission is to help people who are just too good for this world. Spike will take care of it. He’ll find Benny’s enemies. He’ll deal with them. This might be satisfying if Spike wasn’t such a menacing presence with terrifying techniques of intimidation.
In the company of Spike and a fascinated young waitress-cum-PI-in-training named Harper, Benny plunges into a perilous high-speed adventure, the likes of which never would have crossed the mind of a decent guy like him.
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ISBN-10
1662517777
ISBN-13
978-1662517778
Print length
382 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Thomas & Mercer
Publication date
July 15, 2024
Dimensions
6 x 1 x 9 inches
Item weight
1.15 pounds
One thing common to all of us in this life, if we are wise enough to understand, is that we live always under one threat or another and must never let our guard all the way down.
Highlighted by 469 Kindle readers
“When it comes to human behavior,” Mengistu said, “if you can imagine people doing something stupid or dangerous, then there are people somewhere who are doing it. Often highly educated people.”
Highlighted by 451 Kindle readers
But remember me, Dooley Peebles. Remember me if ever the world goes so wrong that there seems no way to make it right again.
Highlighted by 343 Kindle readers
ASIN :
B0C2VYV9KD
File size :
4342 KB
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Enabled
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Supported
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Enabled
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Enabled
Word wise :
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Before I became his editor, I might have described Dean Koontz’s novels as terrifying. Thirteen-year-old me was scared and riveted by the sometimes-monstrous characters racing through the oft-action-packed pages. But Dean Koontz is also a very funny, thoughtful man.
With that in mind, I shouldn’t have been surprised that The Bad Weather Friend was more than a thrilling ride with some Koontzian villains and horrifying scenes so affecting you may not be able to turn out the lights. (I’ll never look at bugs in quite the same way.)
It’s also a funny, touching, and poignant novel (disguised as a buddy novel) about being a nice person with good intentions—something Dean and the very large and imposing character in his book (named Spike, of course) think deserves to be preserved and protected. “We are living in such dark and dangerous times that I believe readers need what this story offers,” he recently wrote to me. And I couldn’t agree more.
The Bad Weather Friend is an unexpected journey that combines the wit of The Princess Bride with the gothic and wry cross-genre appeal of Netflix’s Wednesday. But it’s that indelible thread of hope, something that touches every page of this thrilling ride, that will keep me coming back to Koontz for years to come.
—Jessica Tribble Wells, Editor
FLORIDA
Nine feet long, four feet wide, four feet deep, weighing well over a thousand pounds, the crate was a hateful thing, not simply because it was an awkward load that could cause a serious injury to those who had to move it, but also because, well, it gave off what Dooley Peebles called “weird vibes” and what his pal Rosco Moseley described as “bad mojo.”
Dooley and Rosco were employees of Mayweather Universal Air Freight. On a humid afternoon in October, in a box truck containing a long-tine forklift rated for four thousand pounds, they arrived at the colonel’s warehouse in Boca Raton, Florida.
A flock of red-crowned parrots were busy eating nuts that the colonel had scattered on the pavement for them. As the truck drew near, the birds flurried skyward, a flung Joseph’s coat of flashing colors.
Colonel Talmadge Clerkenwell looked older than Florida. His three-piece linen suit glowed as white as his hair, mustache, and goatee. If he hadn’t been rail thin and standing as straight as a plumb line, you might have thought he was the fabled founder of the KFC restaurant chain.
The crate, like the colonel, was waiting on the concrete apron outside the warehouse. Rosco Moseley hated the thing on sight and dubbed it “the Beast.” Colonel Clerkenwell was courteous, so affable and at ease that it seemed he must have spent his life loving and being loved through a long smoothness of days. He was also mysterious. No sign suggested what the warehouse might contain. The colonel responded to questions about the place and the shipment with such graceful elusion that it almost sounded as if he had answered them.
The pickup order said the customer was shipping books to one Benjamin Catspaw at an address in California, which made no sense. Not that people in California didn’t read books. They probably did. Or used to. But a thousand pounds of books would have been packed in several smaller, more easily handled containers.
The colonel had paid dearly to have his shipment picked up by appointment rather than during the course of Dooley and Rosco’s regular schedule. It was to be taken directly to a cargo jet then loading in Miami. Yet the colonel declined to pay extra for more insurance than the standard contract provided, which was two dollars per pound. Dooley was required to offer the enhanced coverage, but Clerkenwell just smiled and said, “Oh, they’re nothing but a few hundred old books. The value is purely sentimental.”
Although Dooley warmed to most people only after he got to know them well, he liked the colonel within a minute of meeting the old guy. Dooley did not like liars, because he’d come from a family of them who lived by deceit and were as likely to defraud relatives as they were to steal from anyone else. He felt sure that the colonel was lying about the crate being full of books, but Clerkenwell had a quality that suggested he never lied about anything important, neither to obtain an advantage nor to harm another person.
Dooley didn’t know what that quality was, couldn’t define it, at least not right then, with the gray sky lowering and rain coming soon and the crate needing to be forked into the truck. It was an intuitive perception, almost psychic.
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Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Elsa, and the enduring spirits of their goldens, Trixie and Anna.
Customer reviews
4.1 out of 5
38,109 global ratings
charles greaves
5
Sad when this one ended.
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2024
Verified Purchase
Witty and funny. This was the author breaking all the rules, crashing the wall and winking at the reader and flexing his vocabulary for fun. I thought my command of the language was pretty good, but I found myself going to the dictionary a few times. I won't spoil it, but just a great premise and a satisfying read. The good guys are very good and the bad guys are evil. The pets are there too, though I was half hoping for the dog to communicate with alphabet blocks. Sadly no. Mr. Kootz puts so much reality into his fiction, at one point a character explains how she only reads fiction, because only fiction writers are telling us the truth. Love this one, not sure it could be a series, but it would great to see what happens next. Enjoy!
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18 people found this helpful
Mark Elcock
5
Great Book
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2024
Verified Purchase
Wow. Just keeps getting better. Koontz is one of the best writers of all time. He takes his time thru details of his words to bring the story alive in your mind. You can imagine the heart in the hand and the eye out of the socket. The loveless mother and psycho headmaster. So compelling it was hard to put down. I even laughed at loud at one part. So good it gives you so many emotions of horror, love, desperation, anxiety and amazement. I have always loved his books and I would put this one at the top 10. Phantoms will always be number 1 in my books. So read please.
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3 people found this helpful
David Kloth
5
Benny Is a Nice Guy -- a Really Nice Guy
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2024
Verified Purchase
I always enjoy Dean Koontz books. They're imaginative and entertaining. The Bad Weather Friend is a perfect example of a Dean Koontz book that presents a terrific story, well told.
Like a lot of stories, this one is told partially in flashbacks of our protagonist, Benny Catspaw. Benny starts this tale in his early twenties as a real estate sales agent (selling dirt, as Benny describes his trade) with a growing track record of success in the upper end of the Orange County, California market. Deep in his heart and mind, Benny is a nice guy. A very nice guy--that's important.
Then the wheels fall off of Benny's life--his career, his love interest, and almost everything else that he touches. What makes it worse is that Benny can't figure out why, and nobody will tell him. He as become persona non grata to most of the people he knows. Nobody will tell him why, and they won't even return his telephone calls or text messages. The only exception is an ex-policeman turned private investigator named Fat Bob, and a young lady who is a waitress by day and a budding PI working as an assistant to him.
Then, Benny receives an unexpected message and gift from an uncle Benny doesn't know he has. The gift isn't an object and it isn't money. It comes in a very unusual shape and size, and at its heart it is supernatural . . . and its name is Spike.
As the flashbacks begin, we look back on Benny's extraordinary life including family and education, and then return to Benny's unfortunate present. I won't go into any of the details, because I don't want to spoil your fun. Suffice it to say that as we bounce back and forth with Benny as he examines his present, considers his possible future, and looks at his past, the story is remarkable.
The story is absurd . . . but fun. Great fun. Trust me.
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21 people found this helpful
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