The Key to Midnight

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The Key to Midnight
Cover of The Key to Midnight
Author	Dean Koontz (as Leigh Nichols)
Country	USA
Language	English
Genre(s)	Suspense, Horror novel
Publisher	Berkley Publishing Group
Publication date	1979 (1995 in paperback)
Media type	Hardcover, Paperback
Pages	432 pp hardcover, 419 pp paperback
ISBN	ISBN 0-425-14751-7

The Key to Midnight is a novel by the best-selling author Dean Koontz, released in 1979 under the pseudonym Leigh Nichols.

[edit] Plot summary

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A detective is hired to find a Senator's missing daughter. Years later he goes on a vacation and out of the blue finds himself in Japan. He walks into a lounge act and on stage is the Senator's daughter grown up.

Her name is different, she is older, but it is definitely her. He sends for his dead-case file and his private employed messenger is almost killed delivering it. Someone is watching him. Or her. Or both.

A twisted tale of hypnosis and finding oneself after great trauma. A dark tale from which both the main characters must deal with their past in order to survive for their future.

In Dean Koontz's novel The Key To Midnight one of the lead characters (Lisa Chelgrin) has had her entire life erased and her true past is blocked even while under hypnosis during which she repeats the phrase "tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun" instead of answering the questions about her true past. Her imposed/fake identity is named Joanna Rand. The Doctor (Inamura) trying to find ways around this memory block assumes there is a "password" or "pass-phrase" which will remove the memory block and allow access to her true memories.