False Memory breaks the boundaries of genre classification. It is in the detective fiction tradition of the amateur who ferrets out crime where the professionals see none, with Koontz's interesting addition that makes his detective also an unwitting victim, with the clues to events locked away in his own subconscious. More particularly, the novel is in the subgenre of the mass murder/serial killer story. Mass murderers are more often the subject of thriller/horror stories than tales of detection because their focus is on the mad impulses that lead to insane acts of mass violence; while the villain of Koontz's novel is led by mad impulses to insane acts of violence and kills untold numbers of people, he kills them one at a time instead of en masse. Thus, he is more properly labeled a serial killer; and serial killers are very much a staple...