Essay title: The Vision

Most people are skeptical about psychics and psychicpowers. In the book The Vision by Dean Koontz, therearises a real convincing psychic Mary, who has visions ofmurders that are yet to happen. But, a new twist to the storycauses Mary to see a different kind of vision. Murders moregruesome than ever. More difficult to see. Harder to pursue.All these factors cause the reader, and possibly Mary towonder who are the ones who really care for her.

Can themurderer possibly be someone she loves? Or maybe ahaunting truth about the past. The story takes place invarious locations of modern day California. Some of thestory takes place in Los Angeles, but the most momentouspart of the story takes place in a little town called King'sPoint. The town is on the Pacific Coast Highway, andexpensive houses dot the shoreline. Pertaining to the visions,Dean Koontz vividly describes the scene of each of them, asthey take place. For example, he takes the reader to one ofthe scenes of a murder.

A small beauty shop in Santa Ana,California. He forces the reader to picture the variousaspects of a normal beauty shop, such as, the exterior. Theneon lights, the palm trees, the jade-plant hedges, and themoney-scented air. He informs the reader of the scent of theshampoo, cream rinse, cologne, and perspiration. He tellshow the floor was covered in hair, and the purple color ofthe walls, and the plush purple carpet. He describes thesound of the hair dryer and the gunshot in which themurderer shot the cashier.

As one can see, the authorthoroughly describes the setting. The main character is ofcourse, the psychic, Mary Bergen. She is the author of asyndicated newspaper column about psychic phenomena,and the one who pursues the visions in which the murderercreates. The true identity of the murderer is not clear until theend of the book. Max Bergen, Mary's husband, and AlanTanner, Mary's brother, each try to help Mary pursue hervisions to catch the killer, and to free Mary's life of thehorrible stress that encompasses her. But Max and Alandon't get along very well.

Alan feels that Mary could havepicked a better man to marry, because he believes that allMax is after is Mary's money, and that Max doesn't reallyrealize how fragile she is. Max knows how Alan feels, butobviously he disagrees. Max is pretty a strong man, sixinches taller, and forty pounds heavier than Alan. AlthoughMax had promised Mary that he would never physically fightanother person, he feels a strong need to fight Alan, butknows that won't stop him from being so arrogant.

Alan onthe other hand, can easily persuade people with his sweetvoice, and pleasing appearance. There is also Dr. Cauvel,Mary's psychiatrist, and Lou Pasternak, one of Mary's oldfriends. Cauvel desperately tries to link Mary's visions to thepast. Pasternak, an alcoholic journalist, helps Mary and Maxtry to find the killer, and stop him. Mary Bergen, thewell-known psychic, has unfortunate.