From the celebrated imagination of Dean Koontz comes a powerful reworking of one of the classic stories of all time. If you think you know the story, you know only half the truth. Get ready for the mystery, the myth, the terror, and the magic of...

Dean Koontz's Prodigal Son

Every city has secrets. But none as terrible as this. His name is Deucalion, a tattooed man of mysterious origin, a sleight-of-reality artist who's traveled the centuries with a secret worse than death. He arrives as a serial killer stalks the streets, a killer who carefully selects his victims for the humanity that is missing in himself. Detective Carson O'Connor is cool, cynical, and every bit as tough as she looks. Her partner Michael Maddison would back her up all the way to Hell itself — and that just may be where this case ends up. For the no-nonsense O'Connor is suddenly talking about an ages-old conspiracy, a near immortal race of beings, and killers that are more — and less — than human. Soon it will be clear that as crazy as she sounds, the truth is even more ominous. For their quarry isn't merely a homicidal maniac — but his deranged maker.

"In this grisly thriller, the first in a new series by bestsellers Koontz and Anderson, Dr. Frankenstein has survived into the 21st century, masquerading as biotech tycoon Victor Helios. Helios wants to replace flawed humanity with his New Race, people born and fermented in pods, their personalities programmed by him, their imperfections removed in the lab. But at least one of his creations has become a serial killer, trying to assemble the perfect woman from parts of many. Like expert plate-spinners, the authors set up a dizzying array of narrative viewpoints and cycle through them effortlessly. These include one of Victor's creations who suffers from autism and is trying to understand it; a cloned priest who serves as a clandestine member of Helios's army; Helios's custom-made wife, unique among his creations in that she's allowed to feel shame; and, tying it all together, a classic buddy-cop set of homicide detectives who slowly come to understand that the butcher they're chasing isn't quite human. The odd juxtaposition of a police procedural with a neo-gothic, mad scientist plot gives the novel a wickedly unusual and intriguing feel. The familiarity of the Frankenstein myth makes much of the story arc predictable, but it's still a compelling read, with an elegant cliffhanger ending." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"A compelling read.... The odd juxtaposition of a police procedural with a neo-gothic, mad scientist plot gives the novel a wickedly unusual and intriguing feel ... with an elegant cliffhanger ending."—Publishers Weekly

"This is classic Koontz at his best. The plot zips along, the characters are grotesque and funny. The basic elements of Mary Shelley's novel, though slightly altered, fit right in."—Fangoria

This first title in the mesmerizing four-book paperback original series — Dean Koontz's Frankenstein — is a brilliant re-imaging of the classic story that only world-renowned and New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz could conceive, bringing the two hundred-year-old "monster," a literate, mysterious loner, to modern day New Orleans on the trail of his creator and the serial killer he has spawned.

A brilliant re-imagining and updating of the classic Frankenstein story that only Dean Koontz could conceive, Prodigal Son is the first volume in a four-book series that opens with the "monster" — Deucalion — coming to modern-day New Orleans, where he will join forces with a street-smart police detective and her partner on the trail of a macabre serial killer...a serial killer spawned, Deucalion will discover, by his own creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, now Victor Helios.

Deucalion has survived for two centuries, given near immortality by the furious lightning storm that brought him to life. But he is no monster — not anymore. While he carries a quiet mystery about him, Deucalion is literate, intelligent, and very much in control of himself, almost as if he has an inner peace. For two hundred years Deucalion has thought himself alone among men, an aberrant creation of an evil mind. Now he will find that his fellows are legion...that they live among us at every strata of society...and that his nemesis, Victor Frankenstein, has survived the centuries as well...and dreams of seeding the earth with his creations.

Loosely based on Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, the national network television series scheduled to begin airing on USA at Halloween, and co-authored with Kevin Anderson, subsequent volumes in the series will continue Deucalion's pursuit of Victor Helios and his unnatural army, in partership with two tough, bemused New Orleans cops, and will move back and forth in time as well, unspooling Deucalion's story from the time the original story closed. Rich, suspenseful, heartbreaking and terrifying, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein will explore as only "the master of the psychological drama" (Larry King, USA Today) can, the heights to which we might aspire, the depths to which some may fall, and what, in the end, it means to be truly human.

The "New York Times" bestselling author brilliantly re-imagines the classic story in a mesmerizing original four-part series that brings the 200-year-old "creature," a literate, mysterious loner, to modern day New Orleans on the trail of his creator and the serial killer he has spawned.

When he was a senior in college, Dean Koontz won an Atlantic Monthly fiction competition. He has been writing ever since. His books are published in 38 languages; worldwide sales are over 300 million copies.

Ten of his novels have risen to number one on the New York Times hardcover best-seller list (The Husband, One Door Away From Heaven, From The Corner Of His Eye, Midnight, Cold Fire, Hideaway, Dragon Tears, The Bad Place, Intensity, and Sole Survivor). Thirteen of his books have risen to the number one position in paperback.

Several of his books have been adapted into feature films and TV miniseries, including the highly rated “Intensity” on the Fox Network. The Husband is currently in development as a major motion picture by Focus Features/Random House Films.

The New York Times has called his writing "psychologically complex, masterly and satisfying." The New Orleans Times-Picayune said Koontz is "lyrical without ever being naive or romantic. [He creates] a grotesque world, much like that of Flannery O'Connor or Walker Percy ... scary, worthwhile reading." The London Times called him "a literary juggler," and Publishers Weekly recently stated in a starred review that Koontz "gives readers bright hope in a dark world. He is a true original."

Dean Koontz was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Shippensburg State College (now Shippensburg University), and his first job after graduation was with the Appalachian Poverty Program, where he was expected to counsel and tutor underprivileged children on a one-to-one basis. His first day on the job, he discovered that the previous occupier of his position had been beaten up by the very kids he had been trying to help and had landed in the hospital for several weeks. The following year was filled with challenge but also tension, and Koontz was more highly motivated than ever to build a career as a writer. He wrote nights and weekends, which he continued to do after leaving the poverty program and going to work as an English teacher in a suburban school district outside Harrisburg. After he had been a year and a half in that position, his wife, Gerda, made him an offer he couldn't refuse: "I'll support you for five years," she said, "and if you can't make it as a writer in that time, you'll never make it." By the end of those five years, Gerda had quit her job to run the business end of her husband's writing career. Dean and Gerda Koontz live in southern California with their golden retriever, Trixie, who herself has written two successful books—Life Is Good and Christmas Is Good.