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I’m old school Dean Koontz. Watchers and Lightning are two of my favorites, not just of his, but of any writer. In his heyday (largely considered to be the late 80s into the mid 90s), Koontz was the king of suspense, often rivaling his unofficial competitor, Stephen King with bone-chilling moments and characters you really cared about.

Watchers, in my mind, works so well and has remained unforgettable, not just for the nail-baiting suspense, but for the colorful characters and the intriguing approach Koontz takes with the age-old theme of good vs. evil.

The story begins with Travis Cornell, a former Delta Force operative who is backpacking in a canyon near his home when he encounters two drastically different creatures who have escaped from a science lab. One, a sweet golden retriever with the kind of smarts your usual canine just doesn’t have and the other, a horrific creature (we’ll later discover is called the Outsider). Travis rescues the dog and takes him home.

But it doesn’t end there, of course. Travis eventually meets a very shy and traumatized young woman named Nora. Dog, man, and woman eventually find themselves on the run, not only from the Outsider, but from federal agents (who are not necessarily friends of the law) on a mission to find the lab escapees.

Where Koontz’s later works often strike me as contrived and even repetitive, Watchers is first-rate. There is an oddly moving (deeply moving, in fact) scene where we learn that during their time in the lab, both Einstein and the Outsider were forced to watch Disney movies featuring Mickey Mouse. Both of them grew quite fond of the famous furry guy, and later when the Outsider sees something with Mickey Mouse again, the reader witnesses a flicker of humanity in an otherwise inhuman monster. It captures the good vs. evil motif quite nicely without being over-the-top or artificial.