Lost Souls continues the saga of the seemingly unkillable Victor Frankenstein, now a megalomaniac bent on—what else?—world domination, via wiping humanity off the globe, from a few years after where the trilogy Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein left it. Since the blowup (literally: Katrina was raging) in New Orleans in which Victor and his replicant New Race went down for good, Erika Five, the last and most independent version of Frankenstein’s “wife,” has settled outside a Montana town, happily laying low. Then, shopping in town, she sees what could only be Victor. It is, and it isn’t, as she later figures out. Meanwhile, a new bunch of replicants starts replacing their human prototypes and launches a mass termination of the rest of the populace. Fortunately, Deucalion, as Frankenstein’s original creation is now known, is on to the plot. He brings the detective couple from New Orleans, who are now married, new parents, and PIs in San Francisco, into the action, which races to a climax that doesn’t quite conclude in this book. Obviously enjoying himself, Koontz does his dance of grisly suspense, wry dialogue, sharp characterization, outlandish but charming (and well-integrated) comic relief, and cultural criticism more adroitly than almost ever before.

“Koontz does his dance of . . . suspense, wry dialogue, sharp characterization . . . charming (and well-integrated) comic relief, and cultural criticism more adroitly than almost ever before.”

Set in Rainbow Falls, Mont., Koontz's goofy, grisly fourth riff on the Frankenstein theme (after Dead and Alive) finds Victor--previously presumed dead but apparently as easily resurrected as cinematic incarnations of his monster--perfecting his "New Race" of humanoid replicants. As affectless pod-person lookalikes gradually replace the town's citizens, the task of saving humanity from Victor and his megalomaniacal plans to "destroy the soul of the world" fall once again to husband-and-wife detectives Michael and Carson Maddison; Victor's soulsearching original monster, Deucalion; and a host of local yokels who provide both sympathy and comic relief. That the "good guys" are instantly recognizable by their abundant compassion, generosity, and sense of humor and the "bad guys" by their fussbudget fastidiousness and dedication to efficient extermination of inferior humans helps lay the foundation for the humanitarian homilies that punctuate the narrative.