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Taking place over a single night, “Ticktock” is a story that puts your brain on standby and simply pulls you along for the ride.

Vietnamese-American Tommy Phan drives his mother crazy by forsaking the old Asian traditions. When he finds a peculiar doll at his doorstep, however, the tables are turned and the craziness he has to face never stops.

In his own afterword, Koontz calls “Ticktock” a screwball comedy and indeed, the tale is filled with humour, though sometimes a particular comedic line seems a little forced or overdone. Nevertheless, the book is a very good prelude to future stories like “Life Expectancy” and “Relentless”. While “Ticktock” might seem a very simple and somewhat silly story about which many people say it’s not really worthy of the Koontz byline, there’s more to it than meets the eye.

Even though the main character has Vietnamese origins, Koontz never goes overboard with the Asian references as he does with the pastry analogies in “Life Expectancy”. Though constantly comparing the character’s life with his own fictional child, detective Chip Nguyen, does get old after a while. After all the military or law inforcement trained heroes, being a regular guy makes Tommy Phan a real breath of fresh air.

Straying even more from the formula, the heroine of the story this time is the one to call the shots. Deliverance Payne is to me personally one of the more memorable Koontz characters and I’ve always felt there’s so much more story to her than is told in these few pages.

The villain of the piece is a supernatural monster straight out of a horror movie, very similar to the golem in “Dragon Tears”. In this very lighthearted story, the creature at first comes over more as some kind of gremlin, but when our heroes witness the screams of a pair of innocent victims, the reader is hit with the seriousness of the situation and for me personally, that scene immediately puts the story in a completely different mood.

“Ticktock” is a rather quick read, with great dialogue and no real long paragraphs judging some aspect of society. It’ll resonate with some people, but not everyone will find it memorable.

Great reviews as usual Johnny, I have always liked this book. Deliverance Payne is just such a fab character, she's definatly one of my top female Koontz characters.

I have always loved TICKTOCK too. Hysterically funny.