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Dragon Tears
by Dean R. Koontz
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Smithmark Publishers (1994-10)
ISBN: 0831743840
EAN: 9780831743840
Hardcover: 371 pages
SKU: 23781
Condition: New
Comments: THE HARDBACK BOOK! Putnam, 1993.THE UNABRIDGED ORIGINAL 1ST EDITION. HARDCOVER W/GILT LETTERING, DUST JACKET and pages are BRAND NEW! Rapid shipping w/FREE tracking, AIR MAIL.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Forced to kill in the line of duty, police detective Harry Lyon finds his rational world transformed into a place of bizarre surprises and unimaginable dangers. 400,000 first printing. $175,000 ad/promo. Lit Guild & Doubleday Main. Mystery Guild Alt.
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Customer Reviews
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Was Better The Second Time Around
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-08-28
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I think I originally read "Dragon Tears" when it came out about a decade ago, and didn't think much of it. Recently I read the fantastic Koontz novel "Brother Odd", and the "creature" featured in "Brother Odd" reminded me of the "creature" in "Dragon Tears". (I don't want to give away spoilers for either novel so I'm trying to remain vague?).
Giving "Dragon Tears" a second shot, I have to say I enjoyed it. It's definately a dark novel, and coming off a light-hearted Odd Thomas book, it seemed even darker. The Dean Koontz sense of humor found in his Odd Thomas series it all but absent in "Dragon Tears". Two detectives are caught up in a restraunt shooting, and find themselves the target of a maniacal homeless man who has been threatening and killing other street denizens. The killer hobo gives the detectives until dawn to live, at which time he will murder them in a genuinely awful way. But there is something more to the hobo than meets the eye, it seems he can appear and disappear at will and bullets do not slow him down.
The basic story is decent, the real problem I had with "Dragon Tears" were the chapters written from the dog's point of view. It just seemed kind of silly, and I also didn't care for the very rushed ending. It seems the entire novel was building up to a massive showdown, and instead everything wraps up in about 2 pages at the end.
Still as a Koontz fan, I would recommend you give this one a shot, but if you aren't familiar with Koontz, only pick up "Dragon Tears" after you've read some of his better novels like "Watchers", "Strangers" or "Odd Thomas".
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Dragon Tears by Dean Koontz
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-05-21
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Hi. I do not happen to agree with those below that criticize this work. I thought it was very clever, and it held my attention the whole time. I also loved the parts of the story told through the dog Woofer's eyeview. Thank you, again, Mr. Koontz.
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Awful...and I was a fan!
Rating  (1)
Date: 2008-04-07
0 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Do not waste your time, while Koontz does have some ability this one is so cheesy and stupid it was torture to finish. When I start reading books in the perspective of I dog, I know I am reading something for a child.
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Tedious/not worth the effort
Rating (2)
Date: 2008-01-20
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This story opens with a `bang' - actually, a series of them. Our two main heroes, police officers Harry and Connie, are eating lunch when a nut comes in and starts shooting up the place. After they finally kill the bad guy, they then get sucked into dealing with a psychopath who has telekinetic powers and a God complex. The opening parts were good, but the book quickly bogged down in the 2nd quarter, and didn't pick up through the third. A book like this which encompasses less than 24 hours of `realtime' just should NOT be as long as this. DRAGON TEARS might've been an excellent, tight, fast-paced 200 to 250-page thriller; instead, it's a rambling, bloated, 400-plus. A lot of time is wasted with the killer's clichéd inner monologue, and with tedious chapters told from a dog's point of view.
The characters did not impress me, either. I found Harry and Connie to be caricatures - he of an OCD neat-freak, she of a reckless slob. Neither seemed very real to me. And the villain was, beyond his superpowers, not much different personality-wise from any of the army of serial killers with delusions of grandeur that, thanks to Thomas Harris's success, stalk the page of dozens and dozens of novels. Unfortunately, in terms of being an engaging character, this novel's Bryan Drackman is no Francis Dolarhyde, let alone Hannibal Lecter.
Now a confession: I quit reading the book in the third quarter, with about 100 pages left to go. I no longer cared how it ended, and I was getting serious doubts about the ending being worth the effort, doubts which are confirmed by what some of the other reviewers have written. Reading DRAGON TEARS was starting to feel like work, like a chore, and that's coming from a lifelong bookworm. Good fiction is tough to put down, and makes you put aside other things in order to read - this book did the opposite, so I decided to move onto something else. Approach with caution.
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Worms in a Wineglass
Rating  (3)
Date: 2007-09-07
3 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Picked up at a yard sale from neighbors who moved several years ago, I finally pulled this off the nightstand. I'm not completely sure why, but at times I didn't want to read any further because the murders seemed too brutal. The chapter with Ricky Estefan's murder was the best in the book for me. Worms in a wineglass, spiders and snakes and eyeballs that pop out of the head had to make that one of the scariest chapters. Like many, I enjoyed the happy dog thoughts from Woofer. I enjoyed his role in the unfolding of the ending and his joy at a delicious piece of ham at the final meal. Connie was an interesting character with much of her personal history appearing to be a dead end as far as the plot was concerned; however, maybe it's there to help us imagine her life after Dragon Tears. Jennifer Drackman was a sad figure with eyes sewn shut and not being able to get anyone to listen to her. Koontz may have been a bit obvious with the mother knowing the baby would be a bad guy before he'd even been born, but her tale was a good soap box against illegal drugs. The steady revelation to the reader of who and what Ticktock was set up the target and was probably necessary so that Harry Lyon knew what to do at the final confrontation. All in all, this was a suspenseful read. My question had to do with where's the real God if this false one is Becoming. Perhaps we could have had some battling angels on Lyons & Gulliver's side. For the price of a used book, this is a good way to stay awake! Enjoy!
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