False Memory

False Memory is a novel by the American writer Dean Koontz, first published in 1999.

The book opens with two households in difficulty and then gives Martie a symptom that no doctor can place: an autophobia that arrives without cause and worsens quickly, so that a woman who has spent her adult life managing other people's fears can no longer be in a room with a mirror. Dusty, whose brother's addiction has already required him to be patient and forceful in equal measures, refuses to accept the diagnosis he is given and starts pulling at the story, which is how the novel moves from a domestic problem into a conspiracy. Koontz wrote an unusually long list of novels in the years on either side of this one, and the shape here is typical of his better books: ordinary competence under pressure, a small cast with one truly frightening member, and an explanation that is worse than the symptoms. The first edition was a signed limited hardcover from Cemetery Dance Publications before the trade edition appeared.