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Life Expectancy   作者：Dean Koontz   出版日期：2011 / 04 / 29   出版社：HarperCollins   ISBN : 9780007318223   原價：NT 331 元   售價：NT 265 元

內容簡介

In the dazzling new thriller from the master of dark suspense, the hand of fate reaches out to touch an ordinary man with greatness. So long as he is ready. So long as he is, above all, afraid. Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the first and last time since his stroke. What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson -- five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his 20th year; the second in his 23rd year; the third in his 28th; the fourth in his 29th; the fifth in his 30th. Rudy is all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted the moment of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact height, weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly -- the unexplained anomaly of fused digits on his left foot. Suddenly, the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance. What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What nightmares will he face? What challenges must he survive? As the novel unfolds, picking up Jimmy's story at each of these crisis points, the path he must follow will defy every expectation. And with each crisis he faces, he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. For who Jimmy Tock is and what he must accomplish on the five days his world turns is a mystery as dangerous as it is wondrous -- a struggle against an evil so dark and pervasive only the most extraordinary of human spirits can shine through.

吉米·托克是在祖父辭世的那個晚上降生的。 醫院外面風雨大作，魯迪·托克徘徊在准父親等候室與奄奄一息的父親的病房中間的走廊上，焦急地等待著。 當外面的暴風雨下得正酣時，約瑟夫·托克突然從病床上坐起，在中風後第一次，也是最後一次開口講話了。他提醒眾人自己的孫子一生中將要經歷五個黑暗日，每當黑暗日來臨時，吉米身上就會發生一些可怕的事情。 第一次是在吉米二十歲，第二次是在二十三歲，第三次是在二十八歲，第四次是在二十九歲，最後一次是在三十歲。魯迪最初將父親的這些話看作是一位垂死的老人在臨終前的胡言亂語。但是...........