{"product_id":"ticktock-isbn-9780345533456","title":"Ticktock","description":"Tommy Phan is a 30-year-old Vietnamese-American detective and novelist living in Southern California, and a chaser of the American Dream. He drives home his brand-new Corvette one day to discover a strange doll on his doorstep. It's  a rag doll made entirely of white cloth, with no face or hair or clothes. Where the eyes should be, there are two crossed stitches of black thread. Five sets of crossed black stitches mark the mouth, and another pair form an X over the heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe brings it into the house. That night, he hears an odd little popping sound and looks up to see the crossed stitches over the doll's heart breaking apart. When he picks up the doll, he feels something pulsing in its chest. Another thread unravels to reveal a reptilian green eye --and not a doll's eye, because it blinks. \u003cbr\u003eTommy Phan pursues the thing as it scrambles away into his house -- and then is pursued by it as it evolves from a terrifying and vicious minikin into a hulking and formidable opponent bent on killing him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dean Koontz's \u003ci\u003eThe City\u003c\/i\u003e.“[A] funny, chilling, supernatural suspense novel.”—\u003ci\u003eProvidence Journal-Bulletin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “[Koontz is] a master storyteller. Sometimes humorous, sometimes shocking, but always riveting. His characters sparkle with life.”—\u003ci\u003eThe San Diego Union-Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Koontz writes first-rate suspense, scary and stylish.”\u003ci\u003e—Los Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eDean Koontz,\u003c\/b\u003e the author of many #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Elsa, and the enduring spirit of their goldens, Trixie and Anna.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChapter One\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Out of a cloudless sky on a windless November day came a sudden shadow  that swooped across the bright aqua Corvette. Tommy Phan was standing beside the  car, in pleasantly warm autumn sunshine, holding out his hand to accept the keys  from Jim Shine, the salesman, when the fleeting shade touched him. He heard a brief  thrumming like frantic wings. Glancing up, he expected to glimpse a sea gull, but  not a single bird was in sight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Unaccountably, the shadow had chilled him as though  a cold wind had come with it, but the air was utterly still. He shivered, felt a  blade of ice touch his palm, and jerked his hand back, even as he realized, too late,  that it wasn't ice but merely the keys to the Corvette. He looked down in time to  see them hit the pavement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He said, \"Sorry,\" and started to bend over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jim Shine  said, \"No, no. I'll get 'em.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Perplexed, frowning, Tommy raised his gaze to the  sky again. Unblemished blue. Nothing in flight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The nearest trees, along the nearby  street, were phoenix palms with huge crowns of fronds, offering no branches on which  a bird could alight. No birds were perched on the roof of the car dealership, either.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Pretty exciting,\" Shine said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tommy looked at him, slightly disoriented. \"Huh?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Shine was holding out the keys again. He resembled a pudgy choirboy with guileless  blue eyes. Now, when he winked, his face squinched into a leer that was meant to  be comic but that seemed disconcertingly like a glimpse of genuine and usually well-hidden  decadence. \"Getting that first 'vette is almost as good as getting your first piece  of ass.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tommy was trembling and still inexplicably cold. He accepted the keys.  They no longer felt like ice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The aqua Corvette waited, as sleek and cool as a high  mountain spring slipping downhill over polished stones. Overall length: one hundred  seventy-eight and a half inches. Wheelbase: ninety-six and two-tenths inches. Seventy  and seven-tenths inches in width at the dogleg, forty-six and three-tenths inches  high, with a minimum ground clearance of four and two-tenths inches.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tommy knew  the technical specifications of this car better than any preacher knew the details  of any Bible story. He was a Vietnamese-American, and America was his religion; the  highway was his church, and the Corvette was about to become the sacred vessel by  which he partook of communion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Although he was no prude, Tommy was mildly offended  when Shine compared the transcendent experience of Corvette ownership to sex. For  the moment, at least, the Corvette was better than any bedroom games, more exciting,  purer, the very embodiment of speed and grace and freedom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tommy shook Jim Shine's  soft, slightly moist hand and slid into the driver's seat. Thirty-six and a half-inches  of headroom. Forty-two inches of legroom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His heart was pounding. He was no longer  chilled. In fact, he felt flushed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He had already plugged his cellular phone into  the cigarette lighter. The Corvette was his.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Crouching at the open window, grinning,  Shine said, \"You're not just a mere mortal any more.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tommy started the engine.  A ninety-degree V-8. Cast-iron block. Aluminum heads with hydraulic lifters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jim  Shine raised his voice. \"No longer like other men. Now you're a god.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tommy knew  that Shine spoke with a good-humored mockery of the cult of the automobile––yet he  half believed that it was true. Behind the wheel of the Corvette, with this childhood  dream fulfilled, he seemed to be full of the power of the car, exalted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With the  Corvette still in park, he eased his foot down on the accelerator, and the engine  responded with a deep-throated growl. Five-point-seven liters of displacement with  a ten-and-a-half-to-one compression ratio. Three hundred horsepower.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rising from  a crouch, stepping back, Shine said, \"Have fun.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Thanks, Jim.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tommy Phan drove  away from the Chevrolet dealership into a California afternoon so blue and high and  deep with promise that it was possible to believe he would live forever. With no  purpose except to enjoy the Corvette, he went west to Newport Beach and then south  on the fabled Pacific Coast Highway, past the enormous harbor full of yachts, through  Corona Del Mar, along the newly developed hills called Newport Coast, with beaches  and gently breaking surf and the sun-dappled ocean to his right, listening to an  oldies radio station that rocked with the Beach Boys, the Everly Brothers, Chuck  Berry, Little Richard, and Roy Orbison.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At a stoplight in Laguna Beach, he pulled  up beside a classic Corvette: a silver 1963 Sting Ray with boat-tail rear end and  split rear window. The driver, an aging surfer type with blond hair and a walrus  mustache, looked at the new aqua 'vette and then at Tommy. Tommy made a circle of  his thumb and forefinger, letting the stranger know that the Sting Ray was a fine  machine, and the guy replied with a smile and thumbs-up sign, which made Tommy feel  like part of a secret club.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As the end of the century approached, some people said  that the American dream was almost extinguished and that the California dream was  ashes. Nevertheless, for Tommy Phan on this wonderful autumn afternoon, the promise  of his country and the promise of the coast were burning bright.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The sudden swooping  shadow and the inexplicable chill were all but forgotten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He drove through Laguna  Beach and Dana Point to San Clemente, where at last he turned and, as twilight fell,  headed north again. Cruising aimlessly. He was getting a feel for the way the Corvette  handled. Weighing three thousand two hundred ninety-eight pounds, it hugged the pavement,  low and solid, providing sports-car intimacy with the road and incomparable responsiveness.  He wove through a number of tree-lined residential streets merely to confirm that  the Corvette's curb-to-curb turning diameter was forty feet, as promised.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Entering  Dana Point from the south this time, he switched off the radio, picked up his cellular  phone, and called his mother in Huntington Beach. She answered on the second ring,  speaking Vietnamese, although she had immigrated to the United States twenty-two  years ago, shortly after the fall of Saigon, when Tommy was only eight years old.  He loved her, but sometimes she made him crazy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Hi, Mom.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Tuong?\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Tommy,\" he reminded her, for he had not used his Vietnamese name for many years.  Phan Tran Tuong had long ago become Tommy Phan. He meant no disrespect for his family,  but he was far more American now than Vietnamese.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His mother issued a long-suffering  sigh because she would have to use English. A year after they arrived from Vietnam,  Tommy had insisted that he would speak only English; even as a little kid, he had  been determined to pass eventually for a native-born American.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You sound funny,\"  she said with a heavy accent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It's the cellular phone.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Whose phone?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"The car  phone.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Why you need car phone, Tuong?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Tommy. They're really handy, couldn't  get along without one. Listen, Mom, guess what–\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Car phones for big shots.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Not  any more. Everybody's got one.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I don't. Phone and drive too dangerous.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tommy  sighed–and was slightly rattled by the realization that his sigh sounded exactly  like his mother's. \"I've never had an accident, Mom.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You will,\" she said firmly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Even with one hand, he was able to handle the Corvette with ease on the long straightaways  and wide sweeps of the Coast Highway. Rack-and-pinion steering with power assist.  Rear-wheel drive. Four-speed automatic transmission with torque converter. He was  gliding.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His mother changed the subject: \"Tuong, haven't seen you in weeks.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"We  spent Sunday together, Mom. This is only Thursday.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They had gone to church together  on Sunday. His father was born a Roman Catholic, and his mother converted before  marriage, back in Vietnam, but she also kept a small Buddhist shrine in one corner  of their living room. There was usually fresh fruit on the red altar, and sticks  of incense bristled from ceramic holders.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You come to dinner?\" she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Tonight?  Gee, no, I can't. See, I just–\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"We have com tay cam.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"–just bought–\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You remember  what is com tay cam––or maybe forget all about your mother's cooking?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Of course  I know what it is, Mom. Chicken and rice in a clay pot. It's delicious.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Also having  shrimp-and-watercress soup. You remember shrimp-and-watercress soup?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I remember,  Mom.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Night was creeping over the coast. Above the rising land to the east, the  heavens were black and stippled with stars. To the west, the ocean was inky near  the shore, striped with the silvery foam of incoming breakers, but indigo toward  the horizon, where a final blade of bloody sunlight still cleaved the sea from the  sky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Cruising through the falling darkness, Tommy did feel a little bit like a god,  as Jim Shine had promised. But he was unable to enjoy it because, at the same time,  he felt too much like a thoughtless and ungrateful son.#1 New York Times bestselling author","brand":"Bantam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303275811045,"sku":"NP9780345533456","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345533456.jpg?v=1767742616","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/ticktock-isbn-9780345533456","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}