Elsewhere

 Fiction by Dean Koontz

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Jeffery and his daughter Amity are living a peaceful life in a quiet California town where Jeffery works from home and befriends all the neighbors. Then Ed, one of the odder neighbors Jeffery has befriended, a strange man who lives in the nearby woods in a tent, decides to entrust Jeffery with a mysterious package. "NEVER open it," Ed admonishes, and disappears.

Well, because this is the opener to a story, the reader can guess that the package will be opened at some point, and drama will ensue. And because this is a story by Dean Koontz, the reader knows that weird things will happen, but that eventually, the protagonist will triumph.

I like the predictable nature of  Mr. Koontz's characters: his good guys are very good, and his bad guys are VERY bad. You really want the protagonist to win, and the antagonist to suffer mightily. Because of the fantastic nature of the story, the solidness of the characters acts as an anchor to keep the novel grounded and believable.

This is a good story in the classic Dean Koontz style.