Thirty-year-old detective novelist Tommy Phan has just become the proud owner of a bright aqua Corvette. But as he drives his new purchase home on a balmy California day, he is suddenly seized by a teeth-chattering chill and the feeling that he is being followed by something sinister. When Tommy arrives home, a mysterious rag doll – with crossed stitches for eyes and mount, and one over its heart – is sitting on his doorstep.
Tommy takes the doll inside. That evening, he is horrified when its fabric rips open, revealing a beating heart and a blinking green eye. It evolves into a hulking, formidable creature bent on destroying him. On Tommy’s computer screen, it writes THE DEADLINE IS DAWN. With his new friend Del, a beautiful, strangely intuitive blonde, Tommy frantically flees. He must discover what this fierce enemy is and why it’s pursuing him…before his very life ticktocks away.
Ticktock is a novel by Dean Koontz. It is significantly out-of-genre for Koontz: after a typical horror opening, the tone of the plot changes to screwball comedy, and the humour increases steadily to the end.