Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz has been a regular on American bestseller lists since the 1980s, famous for mainstream suspense novels such as Watchers (1987) and Midnight (1989). Koontz grew up in Pennsylvania and began writing at an early age. After college he worked in social services and as a high school English teacher before devoting himself to writing full-time. He published science fiction novels in the late 1960s and early '70s, then wrote novels in a variety of genres under several pseudonyms (achieving some popularity writing as Leigh Nichols). His 1980 novel Whispers became a bestseller and defined what would become a winning formula, a well-crafted suspense story with elements of horror and the supernatural. He has published dozens of novels, many of which have been bestsellers, including Hideaway (1992), Intensity (1996), Odd Thomas (2003) and Velocity (2005).

Extra credit: Many of Koontz's books have been made into movies, including Demon Seed (1977), Watchers (1988), Hideaway (1995, starring Jeff Goldblum) and Phantoms (1998, with Ben Affleck).