This is one of the books that made Koontz’s reputation as a writer of thrillers with a science fiction/horror twist. In this case, it’s that old SF standby, time travel but Koontz wrings every last plot twist out of the trope, working through the ramifications of the idea with a thoroughness and an elan that kept me reading until the early hours of the morning. Not so sure about the reworking of present-day history at the end; that just smacked of authorial wishful thinking. Still, if a writer can’t indulge in some wishful thinking after 350 plus pages of misdirection, narrative switchbacks and plain old adrenaline-fuelled pacy writing, when can he do so? Therefore, on the Koontz-o-meter (which measures the wildly variable writing of Dean Koontz from the excellent [Odd Thomas] to the execrable [Forever Odd]) Lightning ranks high, nearly alongside Odd Thomas.