A woman, Jilly, and two brothers, Dylan and younger brother Shepard known as Shep, have to go on the run together when they are injected by a mad scientist character who seems to be using them as vehicles for his life's work, as he expects the imminent arrival of assassins. When said assassins arrive and blow up the woman's car, seemingly with the scientist aboard, they are forced to depart in the car belonging to the brothers. The story is then their cross-country road trip trying to stay ahead of the killing squad and to work out what has been done to them. They eventually find out it involves nanotechnology and that nanobots are reshaping their brains with very odd results.

I did quite like the book, which is more than I can say for any other 21st century offering from the author although I liked his original novels. This at least does not have devils intruding into human lives or deadly creatures that can only been seen by someone who helps the dead. Instead, the uncanny powers, however unlikely, are science fictional in nature even though the science behind them is pretty shaky. I must admit, the plot of someone being injected in order to save a scientist's life work from being destroyed by his employer gave me deja vu from the start as it reminded me strongly of Greg Bear's 'Blood Music' (which predates this novel by about 20 years) although the scientist in that story injects himself to smuggle his research out of the lab. So it was even more familiar when it turned out the substance they had been injected with contained nanobots. Anyway, apart from those basic ideas the two books are not similar otherwise.

Some of the character traits that the individuals have are annoying, for instance, Jilly's constant anger and argumentativeness. Similarly, it seems odd that if the nanobots in question are meant to enhance the brain's structure they don't resolve Shep's autism. And I found his name rather a challenge, given that there was a famous Blue Peter dog of that name in the UK (Blue Peter is a long-running children's programme) which even had a hit record, 'Get Down Shep!'

The book is rather overwritten in places so that tension is rather dissipated by long drawn out description, such as when Dylan creeps through a house, followed by Jilly, towards a dangerous individual. And the winding up rather spoils things by its unlikely deus-ex-machina of a wealthy benefactor and where the story almost turns into a superhero origin tale. I did find it a bit odd also that the phrase (used as the book's title) coined as a reference to the scientist's wickedness, is eventually adopted by the nano-engineered individuals as a sort of club name for themselves. There are a few references to the author's dissatisfaction with modern life, but nowhere near as intrusive as in more recent novels of his which I've read, but that ending is pure wish fulfilment on the author's part. Overall, I rate this at a 3 star read. ( )

Dylan O’Connor is a gifted young artist just trying to do the right thing in life. He’s on his way to an arts festival in Santa Fe when he stops to get a room for himself and his twenty-year-old autistic brother, Shep. But in a nightmarish instant, Dylan is attacked by a mysterious “doctor,” injected with a strange substance, and told that he is now a carrier of something that will either kill him...or transform his life in the most remarkable way. Then he is told that he must flee--before the doctor’s enemies hunt him down for the secret circulating through his body. No one can help him, the doctor says, not even the police.

Stunned, disbelieving, Dylan is turned loose to run for his life...and straight into an adventure that will turn the next twenty-four hours into an odyssey of terror, mystery--and wondrous discovery. It is a journey that begins when Dylan and Shep’s path intersects with that of Jillian Jackson. Before that evening Jilly was a beautiful comedian whose biggest worry was whether she would ever find a decent man. Now she too is a carrier. And even as Dylan tries to convince her that they’ll be safer sticking together, cold-eyed men in a threatening pack of black Suburbans approach, only seconds before Jilly’s classic Coupe DeVille explodes into thin air.

Now the three are on the run together, but with no idea whom they’re running from--or why. Meanwhile Shep has begun exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior. And whatever it is that’s coursing through their bodies seems to have plunged them into one waking nightmare after another. Seized by sinister premonitions, they find themselves inexplicably drawn to crime scenes--just minutes before the crimes take place.

What this unfathomable power is, how they can use it to stop the evil erupting all around them, and why they have been chosen are only parts of a puzzle that reaches back into the tragic past and the dark secrets they all share: secrets of madness, pain, and untimely death. Perhaps the answer lies in the eerie, enigmatic messages that Shep, with precious time running out, begins to repeat, about an entity who does his work “by the light of the moon.” ( )

I had read this novel when it first came out and thought it was pretty good. Not the best Koontz novel, but still pretty good.
Now I’m wondering about this. This novel now seems rather different for me, maybe because I’ve grown and matured as a person (I’d like to think).

The overly descriptive and loquacious ( ( )

This book is definitely a thriller. While reading this it was difficult to put down. I just had to know what was coming next. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mystery and crime.

"By The Llight of The Moon" begins when Jilly, Dylan, and Shep's lives collide in a motel where a mad-scientist type character injects them with "stuff" and promises that "it does something different to everyone." While the plot revealed itself in time, the story was alll about the three characters and the mad scientist. In the end, the revealed thesis was one of goodness and wonder--but getting there? not so much. ( )