Book Review: ‘Elsewhere’ By Dean Koontz

Jeffy Coltrane and his eleven year old daughter Amity live a quiet life in Suavidad Beach (her mother Michelle left seven years ago and hasn’t been seen since) Well they did until the night a man they nicknamed Spooky Ed shows up again on their porch. He’s a local guy who is a bit weird but seemingly harmless. Ed gives Jeffy a wrapped box to hold for him. He tells him never to open the box and to keep it hidden. If he doesn’t return in one year to retrieve it he is to bury it in the sea.

No sooner does he have to package and Ed disappears men in black Suburbans show up in the neighborhood and search every house. Jeffy opened the box and found what is called ‘the key to everything’ inside. He hides it well and the men depart. When they have it on the table it’s accidentally used and Jeffy and Amity find themselves in a parallel universe. It seems this key lets you travel to any number of other ‘earths’ where you also may live (but a different live). And not all earths are safe.

Soon the men in the suburbans are back and know that Jeffy has the key. They have gone back and forth to other worlds and have learned one thing….Michelle is alive in other worlds. And now that they are not safe in this world they hope to find a Michelle in another world and maybe be a family. When another Ed shows up the race is on the save their lives and keep the key out of the hands of the bad man, who has his own reasons for wanting it.

Dean Koontz is the master of this kind of story. His imagination has no limits and with each book he seems to top himself. It makes you wonder what traveling to other worlds might truly be like.

You can pick up Elsewhere in stores on Tuesday, October 6th from Thomas & Mercer.