77 Shadow Street

By: Dean Koontz

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Enter the world of the Pendleton: The original owner became a recluse - and was rumored to be more than half mad - after his wife and two children were kidnapped in 1896 and never found. The second owner suffered a worse tragedy in 1935, when his house manager murdered him, his family, and the entire live-in staff....

Craftsmen and laborers working on renovations disappear or go mad....

For years, the Pendleton is a happy place, until a bad turn comes again....

Voices in unknown languages are heard in deserted rooms, everywhere and nowhere....

Disturbing shadows move along walls but have no source....

Images on security monitors show strange places that exist nowhere in the building or its grounds....

A young boy talks of an imaginary playmate - who turns out to be terrifyingly real....

A figure like a man but clearly inhuman is glimpsed in the courtyard gardens at night and in other locales, perhaps a hoaxer of some kind, seemingly oblivious of those who see it - until it suddenly takes an interest in one of them....

©2011 Dean Koontz (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Good story but there could have been more.

Any additional comments?

The narration by Peter Berkrot was very good. The story had potential but lacked something. I enjoyed it but!!!!! There was just so much description of gore in every room. You already knew it was there but yet he went on and on about it. Maybe he was trying to fill up pages. I'm not sorry I read the book, it just wasn't one of my favorites.

Fairly Good, Too Character Heavy

The biggest challenge of this book is trying to recall who is who. The book is laden with characters and I found myself often having to restart chapters and try to figure out who was being discussed. This definitely impacted the overall enjoyment of a fairly good story.

Excellent Old School Koontz!

For those of you who have loved Koontz as long as I have (20+ years), this is a delightful throwback to older favorites like Midnight & Lightening. It's an engrossing mix of sci-fi & outright spookiness - also charged with that biting social commentary that we Koontz fans love. One of his best in years!

First time I didn't like Koontz

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

No, I couldn't wait for the book to be over.

Would you recommend 77 Shadow Street to your friends? Why or why not?

I don't think so.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Peter Berkrot?

Yes, narrator was decent.

Do you think 77 Shadow Street needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

NO! I think the story needs to end with this book.

Any additional comments?

I can't think of a single Koontz book that I've read and didn't like at least a little bit. I've read almost all of his books, and loved a lot of them, and liked most of them. I almost couldn't believe this was a Koontz story, that's how dull it was. I forced myself to finish listening to it, thinking it must improve somewhere along the line. It didn't.
I can't remember many details of the story, my mind was wandering most of the time. Such a shame, I so love this author.

Another Winner

Another great story from one of my favorite authors and Peter Berkrot did a fabulous job with narration. 77 Shadow Street was suspenseful and yet in the Koontz style had very funny lines and situations. The mixer of spookiness and humor is great! I highly recomend this story.

Great book

This book is very good
It will keep you reading. This book is the best monster book I read.

Absolutely loved it!

I enjoyed this tale very much, the last quarter was fast paced, intense and made it hard not to just listen straight through. I definitely recommend!

Great premise, oddly executed (SPOILER ALERT)

There is a website that's so well done and was released weeks before the book, so I couldn't wait for the book to come out. The site is fun if you have a decent graphics card because it allows you to poke around The Pendleton.

SPOILER ALERT: The premise of this book is that a big, old creepy house with a violent history is situated on a rift of space and time. Every 38 years going both backward in time and forward, a rift occurs, meshing all of the worlds at once.

It was such a fun and interesting twist on the classic haunted house, I couldn't wait! But there was over a dozen characters and they all seemed to be main characters. That made each person's hopes, dreams, fears and goals tricky to follow and then when one dies on you, you just think, "Well, so much for him and everything he hoped would happen!" and it seemed like a plot point and not a person.

The narrator's voice just bugged me. I recently listened to 11/22/63 and it was narrated by Craig Wasson, an actor I'm a little fond of but thought, "Audio book narration? No way!" Yes he did an amazing job. Meanwhile, this narrator, Peter Berkrot, just didn't snag me and he did a strange thing, too, which may have been something the director told him to do: He changed his speaking voice depending on who was being talked about.

Example: When he began narrating about the aging Cupp Sisters (two women in their 80s), his voice got all craggy and "little old lady" sounding (like Granny from Tweety Bird & Sylvester) when he was NOT doing their dialog! Just when he was talking about what they were doing and thinking. And since it was not written in the first person, it was just weird and distracting.

Over all, I loved the premise, loved the fantasy/futuristic/Orwellian themes it presented, but wish he'd have chosen fewer characters and made their existence mean something in the grand scheme of things.

If you have a credit about to expire, I recommend it.

Difficult at times

The narrator does an excellent job of navigating through this very complicated tale. Even so I got lost a few times. There are too many characters to follow. The premise is worth the read and it ends well.

Not his best work

I'm admittedly, a huge Koontz fan, readily downloading his latest books as soon as they're available. 77 Shadow Street, however, fails to live up to his normal edge of your seat style. There are far too many characters, a strange scientific twist that's all too reminiscent of Michael Crichton's "Prey" and in the end, the book labors over description with far too much detail.

Sure, it's got some great lines and the normal Koontz morality about good and evil. Sadly missing was a canine protagonist. All in all, fairly disappointing. Sorry Dean!