The Silent Corner

OK I admit I have NEVER read a Dean Koontz novel before, because I always associated him with the horror genre and that is something I stay away from. But I kept reading about his "Jane Hawk" series and decided to start from the beginning with this one, published in 2017. Jane was an FBI agent, happily married to a smart and loving man who was the father of their adorable young son. Then her husband apparently kills himself, leaving a note that says "I very much need to be dead." Jane knows her husband did not kill himself and in trying to find out who could have made him do this, she uncovers an anomaly in the U.S. suicide statistics. More people than usual are committing suicide and, when Jane investigates further, she finds a number of them were similarly well adjusted,  highly productive people with no signs of depression or mental illness. But then someone breaks into her house and makes it clear that if she persists in her inquiries, her son will be abducted and sold into sexual slavery outside the U.S.
She quickly buys a junker car, sells her house at a fire sale price, closes out her bank accounts, and drives cross country to hide her son with people she believes will not be connected to her. Then she goes on the road to interview the people left behind by the anomalous suicides. She is technically on leave from the FBI but goes completely off grid since she realizes that the conspiracy behind the deaths is probably very high up in the food chain and wide-spread. She trusts no one. She figures out that a brilliant but power hungry scientist has created a way to inject people with nano-technology that gives him control over their minds. This man, Bertold Shenneck, is her target.
The pace is relentless, the plotting intricate and scary, and the prose is excellent. You will root for Jane all the way as she battles people who are determined to kill her and who can enlist her most trusted colleagues as well as strangers to hunt her down. Can't wait to read the next installment, The Whispering Room. Kirkus calls this Koontz's "leanest, meanest thriller." And there is also a glowing review from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and good words from Booklist.