Books like The Door to December

To the checklist!1. Blond lead/love interest - No2. Dog(s) - Yes (small mention)3. Government conspiracy - Yes4. Aliens - No5. Serial Killer - Yes6. Bougainvillea plant - Yes (x2)7. Sodium-vapor streetlight - Yes8. Precocious child - No9. Insta-Love - Yes10. Mind Powers - YesSeven out of ten! Holy Koontzian Bullshit, Hackman!The problem with reading Dean Koontz in chronological order of publication is that you start to see how much he reuses formulas. The Door to December has the same basic structure as Darkfall, and even includes the theme of locked-door mysteries. Mix that with the theme of an important child that must be saved at all costs, ala The Servants of Twilight, and you're left with more of the same piled on top of some of the most superfluous writing I've ever come across.There's a 60-page chapter in here that is utterly ruined due to what I've coined to be the Finn Dilemma. You know how Finn in the new Star Wars movies is given that side quest in The Last Jedi that seemingly serves no purpose aside from keeping him active in the saga, as if the filmmakers didn't know what else to do with him? That's what happens here with the male lead. Koontz gave him a strong supporting role and then seemingly didn't know what to do with him. During a scene of suspense, Koontz keeps jumping out of the fun to show us a repetitive and useless argument between two detectives. This is the equivalency of Michael Bay cutting from an epic car chase to a scene wherein someone is watching grass grow, only the scenes wherein this person is waiting for the greenery to lengthen lasts longer than any of the car chase scenes. Rinse. Repeat. More than a dozen times this happens, effectively killing all tension and suspense and leaving me, the reader, scratching my head and wondering what kind of head injury Koontz sustained in order to think such a thing was a good idea.This book was originally published under the Richard Paige pen name, which automatically assures that it covers a recycled idea. The plot is so obviously such that I called the "twist" within the first 50 pages. Ask my friend Delee, who's been buddy reading these books with me. I texted her and was all like, "Yo, I bet this is what's going on." And guess what, sports fans, ya boi was right. So how did I know? Because Koontz has written this book more than a dozen times in his career. My theory is, he'd get stuck on an idea and continue to rewrite said idea ad nauseam until a new idea surfaced. He would then publish each of these eerily similar ideas under different names to keep people from catching on. Later in life, when the Koontz name became the most popular of his ventures, and Koontz realized that not only did people not care if he repeated plots time and time again but they actually PREFERRED when he did, Ol' Ray said "Fuck it" and started republishing all of his throwaways under the Koontz byline to pad his bibliography.But the biggest sin this book makes is the unforgivable sin of being meh as fuck. I didn't hate it, and I certainly didn't like it. It left me feeling indifferent, which is the worst thing a book can do, in my opinion. I would much rather hate a book than feel indifferent because at least then I can funnel my rage into a humorous review to entertain the general public. But this? This book just exists, and I have no idea why.In summation: The quintessential Koontzian experience, from the sodium-vapor streetlights to the insta-love. If you've read more than five Dean Koontz books, you've read this one at least four times.Final Judgment: The literary equivalent of a shrug.