Cold Fire
Published: 1991
Author: Dean Koontz
Genre: American, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, Ghost, Horror, Literature, Psychic, Psychological, Romance, Science Fiction, Supernatural, Suspense, Thriller
Check out the review of this book here:
Summary
Jim Ironheart, a recently retired teacher, puts his life in danger to help others. In Portland, he rescues a small kid from an inattentive drunk driver in a van. He saves a toddler from an underground explosion in Boston. He disarms a guy in Houston who was attempting to shoot his own wife – and he isn't just lucky to be in the right location at the right time. He receives "inspiration" and knows he needs to go somewhere quickly.
To the amazement of people around him, he hurries off to call a cab or board a plane, abandoning whatever he's doing at the time. He has no idea where or why these visions occur, but he feels he must be a God-sent guardian angel with a celestial ability.
Holly Thorne, a reporter, was in Portland to write a dull story on a school teacher who had produced a book of poetry full of poems Holly believes to be pure transcendental rubbish - but such is Holly's lot in life.
She is a terrific writer, but she is failing as a reporter because she has too much ethics and compassion. As she walks away, she sees Jim rescue the child from the drunk driver and notices something fishy about Jim's statements of how he began rushing for the child before seeing or hearing the vehicle approaching.
She finds that a mystery good Samaritan called Jim with blue eyes has performed 12 last-minute rescues in different newspapers during the previous three months.
Holly is drawn to Jim and his intense but chilly blue eyes — eyes that burn with a passionate, cold fire, hence the title of the tale.
Holly agrees to accompany this humble yet enigmatic savior on his next "mission." Unbeknownst to Jim, she rushes to the airport and joins a United Airlines DC-10 flight heading for Chicago.
She goes to face him and discovers Jim's weird yet incredible abilities. Jim informs her that he has been sent by God to save a woman and a kid on the plane - he has no idea why God has selected these two in particular, but he does know that they must swap seats or they will perish in the awful plane accident of which he has seen a vision.
Holly is impressed by Jim's notion that he possesses some mystical power bestowed upon him by God.
Holly takes a more skeptical approach, arguing how silly such notions are. She wonders why "God" would choose to save these two people while killing 151 other passengers, as Jim predicted. There must be much more deserving individuals on board, and why would God allow the plane to crash at all? Holly encourages Jim to do more than simply inform the couple to relocate, but to notify the pilot and maybe rescue everyone on board.
Jim first resists, and he is adamant about not questioning his visions. He just informs Holly that God sends him and that he solely follows the instructions - anything else would be going against God's plan.
Who else, he wonders, could be sending him visions to save lives just in time? Holly talks him down and assures him that there is no reason for Jim (or God) to let someone die in vain.
The plane, however, is beyond repair and crashes, reducing the number of deaths from 151 to 47.
Holly is able to earn Jim's trust after the tragedy. They are drawn to each other, but Holly is intrigued by Jim's unusual visions. She intends to find out how, why, and who, just as any reporter would.
However, the more she probes, the stranger things get. Almost all of Jim's childhood memories are gone, save for the fact that his parents died when he was nine at his grandparents' ranch. He just has hazy memories of his youth and becomes irritated when Holly asks him.
She realizes that his odd skills are related to his childhood and the absence of memory from that time. For numerous nights, she hears him mumble in his sleep, "There is an Enemy. It is on its way. It's going to kill us all. It is unrelenting."
She and Jim begin to have identical terrifying nightmares surrounding the old mill from his grandparents' ranch, and during one of these "nightmares," they are both fully conscious and fighting some eerie force coming at them from the walls and ceiling – needless to say, they are convinced the force behind it all is neither God nor benign.
Holly certainly thinks they must return to the ranch to locate the cause of everything, despite her terror of what they may discover. Jim is first hesitant, but as they get closer to the ranch, he becomes increasingly persuaded that the entity is something truly big and strong — something not of this world.
Once inside the scary tower chamber of the windmill, the alien emerges from the neighboring pond, first through noises similar to church bells and then through a captivating show of swirling colors and bursting lights.
The creature then begins to materialize as a voice by magically using a pen and paper to make words appear. It introduces itself as THE FRIEND from ANOTHER WORLD. When asked why, it responds, "TO OBSERVE, STUDY, AND ASSIST MANKIND."
Holly questions why it assaulted them the night before, to which THE FRIEND responds that it was the work of its opposite half, THE ENEMY.
When queried about the bells and lights, it responds, "FOR DRAMA?" When Holly starts asking questions as to why certain individuals are selected but not many others, THE FRIEND reveals that someone will solve all deadly diseases, another will become a fine leader, someone else will become an incredible spiritual leader, and on and on.
While Jim is overjoyed, Holly cannot trust the answers since they do not make logical sense and appear banal, fanciful, and infantile to her.
While Jim is out of the room, Holly asks THE FRIEND probing questions about him. All of the responses are too predictable to accept, and it ultimately responds to her pestering with threats, and then, most surprisingly, with the words "I," "MY," and "ME."
At that point, it is determined that Jim is the source of both THE FRIEND and THE ENEMY, that it is he, not God or some foreign entity, who is generating the nightmares.
After Jim's parents died, he got infatuated with a novel about an extraterrestrial in a pond close to a windmill – so enthralled that the youngster never grew up until one day, an adult-in-body Jim moved away and began a purportedly regular life.
Holly assists Jim in dealing with his past, and the two embark on a new life together.
Useful Search Related Words & Keywords
Character Development, Great Read, Highly Recommend, Holly Thorne, Jim And Holly, Jim Ironheart, Koontz Books, Koontz Novels, Odd Thomas, Page Turner, Stephen King
Rating: 90/100
Recommended: 100/100 Yes.
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