77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz

Here's the summary from Amazon: "Welcome to the Pendleton. Built as a tycoon’s dream home in the 1880s and converted to luxury condominiums not quite a century later, the Gilded Age palace at the summit of Shadow Hill is a sanctuary for its fortunate residents. Scant traces remain of the episodes of madness, suicide, mass murder—and whispers of things far worse—that have scarred its grandeur almost from the beginning.

But now inexplicable shadows caper across walls, security cameras relay impossible images, phantom voices mutter in strange tongues, not-quite-human figures lurk in the basement, elevators plunge into unknown depths. With each passing hour a terrifying certainty grows: Whatever drove the Pendleton’s past occupants to their unspeakable fates is at work again. And as nightmare visions become real, as a deadly tide begins to engulf them, the people at 77 Shadow Street will find the key to humanity’s future . . . if they can survive to use it."

I don't like summarizing so this time I took the lazy option.

I listened to this book in the car and listening, as you know, is quite a different thing from reading. When we started our 10 hour drive, we noted that this was a 14 hour book recording. So, with only a few hours left in the drive, we skipped to the last few CDs. Sadly, it didn't make a whole lot of difference in the continuity of the story, because so much time in the book was spent on building up suspense. Every single Pendleton resident's story was told, each encounter with the scary things that were creeping around...all that went on and on.

I like Dean Koontz a lot and I especially appreciate the lack of bad language and sex scenes in his books. But this one was one of his least engaging books, I think. The doomsday premise was interesting and worth thinking about (reminded me a bit of the computer in "2001 A Space Odyssey" or the one in "I, Robot"--the movie, not the collection of short stories)--the book was worth reading. But some skimming here and there won't hurt the story. And I'm happy to report that Dean Koontz is really good at resolving all pieces of the plot, so you won't be left with any uncertainties. I do like that.

Sex: none, except there is a twisted criminal weirdo that likes to sniff his mother's underwear and talks about sex some. I started fast forwarding his icky ramblings towards the end.
Bad language: I don't think so. There may have been some mild cursing, though, that I don't remember (it's been a month since we listened to it). But Dean Koontz doesn't use the hair curling stuff. One of the reasons I really like him.