The Neighbor (Short Story)

By Dean Koontz

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Every city has its wonders and mysteries. For the Pomerantz family, the most disturbing mystery at the moment is the identity and the intentions of their new neighbor, in this eBook original short story—a prequel to The City, the gripping and moving new novel by Dean Koontz.
 
The year is 1967. Malcolm Pomerantz is twelve, geeky and socially awkward, while his seriously bright sister, Amalia, is spirited and beautiful. Each is the other’s best friend, united by a boundless interest in the world beyond their dysfunctional parents’ unhappy home. But even the troubled Pomerantz household will seem to be a haven compared to the house next door, after an enigmatic and very secretive new neighbor takes up residence in the darkest hours of the night.

Acclaim for Dean Koontz
 
“A rarity among bestselling writers, Koontz continues to pursue new ways of telling stories, never content with repeating himself.”—Chicago Sun-Times
 
“Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose. ‘Serious’ writers . . . might do well to examine his technique.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“[Koontz] has always had near-Dickensian powers of description, and an ability to yank us from one page to the next that few novelists can match.”—Los Angeles Times
 
“Koontz is a superb plotter and wordsmith. He chronicles the hopes and fears of our time in broad strokes and fine detail, using popular fiction to explore the human condition.”—USA Today
 
“Characters and the search for meaning, exquisitely crafted, are the soul of [Koontz’s] work. . . . One of the master storytellers of this or any age.”—The Tampa Tribune
 
“A literary juggler.”—The Times (London)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9780804180672

Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz is the author of more than a dozen New York Times No. 1 bestsellers. His books have sold over 500 million copies worldwide, and his work is published in 38 languages. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania and lives with his wife Gerda, and their dog Elsa, in southern California. Dean Koontz is the author of more than a dozen New York Times No. 1 bestsellers. His books have sold over 500 million copies worldwide, and his work is published in 38 languages. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania and lives with his wife Gerda, and their dog Elsa, in southern California.

Book preview

The Neighbor is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

A Bantam Books eBook Original

Copyright © 2014 by Dean Koontz

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

BANTAM BOOKS and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-8067-2

Cover design: Scott Biel

Cover image: Cultura RM/Hollis Bennett/Getty Images

www.bantamdell.com

v3.1_r1

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

1

My name is Malcolm Pomerantz, and I’m an axe man, though not like those guys on that reality-TV show about loggers. Had I ever been that kind of axe man, I would long ago have cut off both feet or been crushed by a toppling tree. I’ve been clumsy all my life. I have managed not to stumble into an accidental death only because my profession—I’m a musician—doesn’t require me to deal with power tools or treacherous terrain. Axe is musicians’ slang for instrument, and my axe is a saxophone. I have been playing it since I was seven, when the sax and I were nearly the same size.

I’m fifty-nine now, two years older than Jonah, my best friend of half a century. I’m tall, and Jonah’s not. I’m white; he’s black. When I first met him in the summer of 1967, Jonah was ten and quick and graceful, a piano prodigy, and I was twelve and lumbered around like Lurch, the butler in The Addams Family, which had been big on TV the previous year. When I first heard him playing, he rocked the keyboard with Fats Domino’s I’m Gonna Be a Wheel Someday. In both our lives, 1967 proved to be … unforgettable.

At my insistence, Jonah recently talked his life—or at least a strange and tumultuous portion of it—into a tape recorder, and his story became a book titled The City. There isn’t any point in talking my life, because most of the interesting parts are what happened when I was hanging out with Jonah; he’s already covered that territory. I do have one little experience to recount, however, a curious series of events that occurred a few weeks before I met him. Like his more engaging story, mine suggests that the world is a more mysterious place than it seems to be most of the time, when we’re plodding along from breakfast to bedtime in a reassuringly familiar routine.

In those days, my sister, Amalia, was seventeen, five years older than I was, but we were as close as twins. Not that we looked alike. Blond hair in a ponytail, she was lithe and

[enid007 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My emotions are reeling, I admit the book was a slow start for me but once I kept reading the more it drew me in... going from theory to theory and even when I thought I was close to knowing what happened there was another twist, not huge but enough to be like whoa! Alone was my favorite in this series but this one just tied in right above it.

[madison_fairbanks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner
Detective D. D. Warren series #3. Thriller. Can be read as a stand-alone. See trigger warnings online.
A young mother, blond, pretty, disappears without a trace from her South Boston home, leaving her four-year-old daughter behind as the only witness. The husband is secretive and not fully sharing everything with the police. When Detective D. D. Warren arrives, she doesn’t believe she is getting full access or disclosure. There is something more going on and the child may know more than she’s capable of processing, let alone sharing. Is the daughter safe? What about the neighbors?

Oh, these stories are twisted! With twist you won’t see coming. Is it the husband? Is it someone else? It’s intense and compelling.
Some of this authors work is very hard to reconcile. It’s a hard world and she doesn’t go easy. The storytelling is phenomenal.

[pgchuis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When you read several of these in a row they start to feel a bit same-y. This one kept me guessing for a good long time, although the ending was rushed and could have done with a bit of fleshing out.

[johnfishlock · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is my favorite one out of the 3 I have read so far. An intriguing story and twists and turns. A little different from the first two.

[readingover50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book had me guessing and held my interest throughout. The narrative skipped back and forth between several view points, which I am not a big fan of. Both Jason and Sandra have secrets, lots of secrets. As the story unfolds, we learn the secrets little by little. As things are revealed, it casts each person in a new light, and casts doubt on them. Who is the bad guy here, and who is the victim? It was interesting to find out what really happened. Not at all what I expected from the beginning of the book.

[liscarey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

D.D. Warren, Boston Police Department homicide detective, has a baffling new case. A young woman, a teacher, mother of a four-year-old girl, and wife of a reporter for the Boston Daily, has disappeared from her home. Her purse and phone were left on the kitchen table; there are no signs of struggle except, possibly, a broken lamp that shows no signs of being used as a weapon, nor are there other signs of struggle. The comforter from her bed and her nightgown are found in the washing machine, newly washed. Everyone agrees that if she had left voluntarily, she would never have left her child behind.

Her husband is an obvious suspect. There's a registered sex offender, a young man the same age as the missing Sandy Jones, whose tastes might just stretch to the pretty young wife of the older reporter. Sandy's estranged father, Judge Maxwell Black, from Georgia, turns up a couple of days into the mystery. Jason Jones says that the Blacks abused Sandy as a child, and she certainly didn't have contact with her father after she married and moved to Boston with her new husband. And there's an eighth grade student at Sandy's school, who clearly has a massive crush on her, and who when Jason visits the school, attacks him, insisting that Jason has killed Sandy because she was investigating his very mysterious past.

Oh, yes. Jason Jones has no paper trail older than five years.

D.D.'s problem is not a lack of suspects, but too many suspects. And the evidence she has neither wholly supports murder, nor wholly supports Sandy having left voluntarily. The only possible witness is the four-year-old daughter, Rie, her certainly saw something--but questioning such a young child witness is fraught with risks.

We get the story in several voices--D.D.'s, the sex offender Aiden Brewster, and Sandy Jones herself--from beyond the grave? Both Gardner's writing and the three narrators' reading make those voices distinct and compelling, as we follow the story to an ambiguous but satisfying ending.

Recommended.

I borrowed this book from the library.

[lauren2013_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Neighbor
2 Stars

Disappointing - I expected more.
The characters are unlikeable and the plot is thrown together haphazardly. The ending is completely contrived and makes very little sense overall.

[trek520-422216 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

~ Intense
~ Suspenseful
~ Emotional roller-coaster ride
~ Taps a character from the FBI Profiler series
~ Great book

[olivermagnus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When a pretty, young schoolteacher like Sandra Jones goes missing without a trace, the usual suspect is always the the husband. Especially Jason Jones, who seems detached from the whole incident and is very uncooperative. There is one witness, Sandra and Jason's four year old daughter, Ree. Both Jason and Sandra seem to have something to hide. Detective D. D. Warren is sure he's a murderer, even though no blood or body has been found. Before long, she learns that Aiden Brewster, a convicted sex offender, lives on the same street.

Many of the chapters begin with what seems like journal entries either from Sandra or Jason, describing events in their past. The plot unfolds slowly and I had no idea what had actually happened until the very end. The book was filled with twists, turns and tension. I thought The Neighbor was a great suspense novel and it kept me guessing all the way to the end.

[buffalogr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Several characters, easy to understand/listen, tense page turner. As the plot unrolls, it becomes more and more fun. Again, DD Warren is not the primary character--writing style, I guess? I wondered about the function of the perv down the street in the plot...learned a lot about the pressure on those folks, but value added to the book--meh? Gardner does an outstanding job building tension.

[ct4bergeron · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very gone girl like. I really enjoyed this book, and kept turning the pages to get to the end.
When a young woman disappear in the middle of the night, her husband becomes prime suspect. But as the detective dig deeper and deeper, both wife and husband seem to be hiding a troubled past.

[xirxe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hmmm, ein spannender Krimi (Thriller?) mit einem Schluss, der mich jedoch etwas unzufrieden zurücklässt. Nicht dass es an Aufklärung fehlt, aber einige der Erklärungen wirkten auf mich doch etwas weit hergeholt.
Scheinbar ohne jeden Grund verschwindet plötzlich die schöne junge Ehefrau und Mutter Sandra und lässt ihr geliebtes Kind allein zurück. Mord, Entführung oder war sie plötzlich ihres Ehelebens überdrüssig? Da es keine klaren Zeichen eines Einbruches oder Kampfes gibt, deutet alles auf ihren Gatten hin, dem das Verschwinden seiner Ehefrau offenbar nicht allzu nahe zu gehen scheint. Und je mehr Nachforschungen die Polizei anstellt, umso mysteriöser wird seine Person...
Im Gegensatz zu 'normalen' Krimis spielt die ermittelnde Polizei in diesem Buch nur eine Rolle unter vielen. Hauptsächlich wird die Geschichte aus der Sicht der Verschwundenen, ihres Ehemannes und eines verdächtigen Nachbars erzählt, wobei bald klar ist, dass das Ehepaar, jeder für sich, eine Menge zu verbergen hat. Die Neugier auf deren Geheimnisse ist fast größer als die Lösung des Verschwindens, denn dass die eigentlichen Verdächtigen nicht die Übeltäter sind, ist recht schnell klar. Alles in allem eine spannende Lektüre, wobei jedoch die Überraschungsmomente eher gering ausfallen. Und, wie schon erwähnt, die Lösungen des Ganzen wirkten teilweise doch etwas sehr konstruiert.

[dreamingbear-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

as the series progresses, it's becoming more complicated and convoluted. It's great! Kept me guessing until the end.

[pmaurer_11 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Dark characters. Didn't finish it. About a wife taken from her home, with the precocious daughter in the next bedroom. Husband unwilling to talk to police. Neighbor is prevent down the block, trying nit to get arrested.

[frederika.roberts · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What can I say? Another spectacularly tense must-read from Lisa Gardner. I was well over half-way through before I had any kind of idea about what on earth was going on, and all the way to the very end, the twists & turns kept me riveted to the book until the early hours of the morning. I read until I could read no more. An absolute page-turner.

My only (slight) disappointment (it wasn't worth taking one star off for it) was that the ending seemed to unravel very quickly/suddenly. A bit more 'denouement' to put more 'meat' on the final parts of the book would have been great, but I'd definitely recommend this and can't wait to start the next one in the series.

[sareiner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the third book in the DD Warren Series. I must say the BEST so far. Very suspenseful, thrilling, and keeps you guessing. I loved how Gardner through in characters from "Say Goodbye" Once I heard the reference of "the burger man" I was like OMG, I know who he is!!!!!!!! And since I LOVED LOVED LOVED Say goodbye I got even more excited about this book.

We are introduced to a nice normal typical Boston couple Jason and Sandra Jones. Jason is a local new reporter for the Boston Daily news and Sandra is a sixth grade Social Studies teacher. They have a four-year-old daughter Clarissa "Ree" Jones who has an orange cat named "Mr. Smith". The only thing that is out of the ordinary about this nice little neighborhood is the registered sex offender who lives five doors down by nobody knows he is a registered pedophile.

Trouble starts brewing up when Jason comes home from work at 2am and discovers Ree asleep in her room and his wife Sandra missing. Jason checks the house and the backyard and Sandra is nowhere to be found. This worries Jason because Sandra would never leave their daughter alone. After a walk-through of the house, he discovers that the bed sheets stripped off his bed and that the desk lamp is broken lying on the floor.

This is where detective Sergeant D. D. Warren enters the picture. Warren instantly finds a dislike towards Jason from the moment they meet. She feels there is just something not right about him. His lack of interest in finding his wife, and lack of emotion at all sends red flags everywhere. This is why Jason becomes the number one suspect in his wife's disappearance.

Throughout the story we find out that one of the main characters was abducted as a child and molested by a pedophile for several years who is now trying to get the photos and videos taken of him back while ruining the porn sellers. We also meet a community judge who has dark secrets to (which I am not going to say because it will ruin the story for you), a middle school boy who is brilliant with computers and in love with Sandra Jones who also attacks Jason with his text book, his uncle the policeman who we later find out had a semi relationship with Sandra and was secretly stalking her. You must read the book to find out all the juicy scandals!

Just when you think you have figured everything out, another twist or turn will come about and your left guessing again, what the heck happen to Sandra!

Get the book you will not be Disappointed! :)

[bookczuk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Basic soft thriller, with only a few plot holes. Good for doing chores around the house in preparation for putting it on the market. Apparently the main detective is a recurring character, so I will undoubtedly follow up with another audio for road trip fodder. I like this kind of book for that.

[abshepherd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another great mystery by Lisa Gardner! This one focuses much more on D.D., but it is more about the suspects which is great by me. Kept me guessing until the end.

**SPOILER ALERT**
My only complaint - and this is not really a complaint at all, more a comment - is that having read Alone and Hide prior to reading this, I felt a little bit let down that Jason was a victim of child abduction/abuse which reasonably had continuing effects on his adult life, but since Catherine Gagnon, who featured in Alone and Hide was also a victim of child abduction/sexual abuse I was a bit disappointed that Lisa used the same type of victim. But if you read this as a stand alone novel you wouldn't even be aware of this issue.

[acorley84 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This story was incredibly smart with all of its twists and turns. I honestly was not able to figure out what happened until it did! Lisa Gardner has mastered the mystery/thriller genre with this novel! She never fails to dive deep into her characters and let you feel raw emotion and wonder what you would do in the same situation. I really enjoyed this story because every page led to something new and different options to keep you guessing what in the world happens! This series is just getting better by the book!

[pidgeon92_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book had several an awful lot of suspects, but it really worked for me. Lots of people with lots of secrets.

[alan18_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Just Ok, Suspense at the end. I really did not like this book very much in total.

[fiberfool · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This series is definitely a departure from my most recent cozy mystery binge. They are dark and heavy in a lot of ways. But I'm enjoying them very much. Tension is high, pacing is often quick and I get sucked into it.In this third installment I especially enjoyed the bits told by Sandy in her own words about the events leading up to her disappearance. The author was definitely skilled at knowing what to tell and when. I felt I had enough info to make speculations, but I never quite nailed it.I am definitely looking forward to the next on the series. Though I will definitely try to pave myself so I don't get through the series too fast and so I don't become over sensitive to the author's habits and patterns in storytelling.

[edwardsgt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For me the plot moved too slowly and locations too static to really get me interested, plus the main characters weren't very sympathetic. The author only revealed the plot at almost the end by which time I'd lost interest.

[carl_alves_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lisa Gardner did a fine job of building tension in this book. I listened to the audio version and couldn't wait to get in my car to listen to more. She had a good number of suspects in the book and an interesting way of telling the story, where the main protagonist's first person narration was mixed in throughout the novel, a clever way of introducing back story, although it kind of gave it away to the reader that she was still alive. The novel was suspenseful and well constructed. The ending was a little bit of a letdown but definitely not enough to ruin the book. All together a fine effort by Lisa Garder.
Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity

[susegordon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Great read told through 1st person memories and thought, but switching between which person. Lies & hidden pasts with no one really being who they seem until culminating in a ending that you really didn't see coming!

[camelliacorner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved this book till the end, and I couldn't really figure it out. Obviously missed something.
A young mum disappears & the author takes us into the world of police procedure & the shadowy realms of criminality. The plot was great, all the different angles & characterisation. It really makes you think about the lives of those who have come into the criminal world and gives a taste of the thinking that may take place in peoples'minds. The idea of the complete shutdown to avoid all memories was displayed really well as the story moved along. The love and dedication shown to the daughter throughot was uplifting. She had her own little quirks and insights.

[carolee888 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book delivers; suspense, mystery and entertainment are done well. All of the characters were well developed psychologically and believable. The author knows police procedures and describes sexual offenders carefully. My knowledge of people who commit sexual abuse and violence against children was minor but I learned from author and also about different programs such as Pascal and Encase that can crack open the information deleted from computers and how they work in general. When a young mother, wife and school teacher goes missing, it seemed that a new “person of interest” popped up frequently in this story. This book took off from the first page and wouldn’t let go until it was over. It made me think about what it is like for those to have to deal with a “normal world” when their only reality was an “abnormal’. I would recommend it to anyone who loves mystery and suspense.

[debralu_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Up to the end you still had questions............

[susiesharp_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A young mother disappears without a trace; her husband comes home to find his daughter sleeping and the rest of the house empty.

As usual Lisa Gardner gives us another edge of our seat thriller. This was another semi-creepy one; it hops back and forth between narrators telling each persons story which I liked because it that keeps you guessing all the way through. She also brings back a character from the past and when you figure it out and a certain name is mentioned **No Spoilers** it will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

The thing that keeps this from being a 5 star book is the police procedure, which I was a little disappointed in Sgt. DD Warren, is on the case and she is so intense and set on proving the husband did it. I don't remember them checking the bus, train, plane stations checking with cab companies or anything to see if Sandra just ran away. She was just so intent that the husband killed her it didn't seem like she wanted to explore any other avenue.

The ending will shock you the characters will surprise you its everything you would expect from Lisa Gardner.

[mrtall_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Neighbor is a police procedural-cum-thriller with a bit of a difference. In brief, D D Warren, a tough-talking but attractive policewoman, tries to sort out the mess when a young mother mysteriously disappears from her own home in the middle of the night. Her handsome but oddly-behaving and enigmatic husband immediately takes center stage as the prime suspect, but the missing woman has a turbulent backstory, and other odd connections and entanglements lead to fresh suspicions being raised.

The best thing about this book is its unpredictability. The worst thing about it is its predictability. How can that be? Well, the setup of the story is really quite fresh, with a progression of events and plot revelations that doesn't follow the conventions of the genre. But about three-quarter of the way through the book, there's an abrupt change of pace, and the book's climax is obvious well in advance of its consummation.

Gardner's pacing and characterization are not bad, but she relies too much on technological detail to keep the plot moving at times. Her IT-savvy characters and their clever tricks don't come off very well; Gardner seems more an admirer of high-tech looking in than someone who really understands it herself, and much of the book will date rapidly.

On the whole, though, I'd recommend this one. It's fun summer reading.