Intensity (novel)
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 Cover of Intensity |
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| Author | Dean Koontz |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Bantam Publishing |
| Released | 1996 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 448 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-58291-7 |
Intensity is a novel by the best-selling author Dean Koontz, released in 1996.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The book begins with Chyna Shepard (a college student) visiting the family of her friend, Laura Templeton over a long weekend. A victim of a violent, unstable and abusive childhood, Chyna finds at the Templeton house something she's often yearned for-acceptance. But this is all crushed when Edgler Vess, a sociopathic serial killer, breaks into the house in the night and methodically kills all of the occupants except Laura and Chyna.
Chyna hides from him and finds her friend tied up in her bedroom, raped. She sneaks away, promising to return. Before she can, however, Edgler removes Laura from the house onto his motor home and kills her. Chyna, not knowing this, sneaks aboard the motor home and finds her friend's body. Before she can escape, Edgler begins driving. She hides in a back room, planning to escape at the earliest opportunity, until he stops at a gas station, where she sneaks out and heads inside to find a phone. Edgler kills the attendants, however, as Chyna watches surreptitiously, and drives away. Before murdering the attendants, Edgler boasted of holding a young girl, Ariel, prisoner in his basement, and Chyna thus feels compelled to follow him to help free the girl. Taking one of the attendants' cars, she gives chase and manages to once again sneak onboard the motor home.
By the time he has reached the house, Edgler has already discovered that Chyna is on board but, fascinated, he decides not to kill her immediately to see what she will do. Chyna breaks into his house and goes into the basement to find Ariel, locked in a room and catatonic. Before she can think of getting her out, Edgler captures her, chaining her up in the kitchen. He taunts her for a while, revealing details about his past and past crimes. Obsessed with the "intensity" of any particular experience, sensory and existential, Edgler styles himself as a "homicidal adventurer", and has killed continually since childhood. He holds out, possibly disingenuously, an offer to allow Chyna to live if she aids him in mentally torturing Ariel out of her catatonia. He then leaves for work, promising to kill both her and Ariel when he returns. Chyna manages to escape from her chains by breaking away from the table to which she is chained, though, and releases Ariel from her prison. The danger is not over for them, however, as Edgler has trained a pack of deadly Dobermann pinschers to guard his property and kill anyone attempting to get in or out. Chyna finds and uses Edgler's dog-training clothing and a spray of ammonia to get through the dogs and into the motor-home. She and Ariel begin to escape in the motor home when they see a police car on the road. She pulls over to signal it, only to discover that the driver is, in fact, Edgler himself, who is the local county sheriff. After ramming his police car, causing him to be soaked with gasoline, and then fighting with him in the forest, Chyna eventually manages to burn Vess alive.
The book then picks up a few months later with Chyna planning to adopt Ariel (who still will not talk) and rehabilitate her.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Intensity was made into a two-part tv movie in 1997 that first aired in America on the Fox Network. It starred Molly Parker, John C. McGinley, and Tori Paul.
[edit] Trivia
- Many believe that the film Haute Tension plagiarised Koontz's book, or was at least heavily influenced by it.
