This is the first novel that I've read by Dean Koontz, so I don't know how close the plot comes to other books that he has written. Ashley Bell certainly defies being pigeon-holed into a particular genre. The book's protagonist, Bibi Blair, finds out early in the story that she has been stricken with an incurable form of brain cancer. Miraculously overnight, she is cured and leaves a baffled hospital staff behind to go to her home, where her parents have sent her the peculiar gift of a masseuse/diviner. She tells Bibi that to keep from being killed by the "Wrong People" and to repay her miracle cure, she must save the life of a girl named Ashley Bell. After that strange encounter, Bibi is thrown into the role of investigator-on-the-run, trying to find out who Ashley Bell is and how she might save her. A major part of this novel revolves around Bibi being an author. Many references are made to authors and stories from both classical and modern literature, which are expertly woven into the narrative. This book is very well written with lots of twists and turns, but from a personal perspective, I find novels that deliver real-life problems with unrealistic solutions to be a kind of cheat. In this novel, Koontz states that real writers don't use a formula and don't know where their characters will take them once the story has begun. That may be true, but in the case of this novel, I didn't find the solution to this character's problems very satisfying.