Koko (novel)
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First edition cover
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| Author | Peter Straub |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Blue Rose Trilogy |
| Genre | Horror |
| Publisher | Dutton |
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Publication date
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1988 |
| Media type | Print () |
| Pages | 562 (hardcover) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 17618882 |
| 813/.54 19 | |
| LC Class | PS3569.T6914 K6 1988 |
| Preceded by | None |
| Followed by | Mystery |
Koko is a mystery novel written by Peter Straub and first published in the United States in 1988 by EP Dutton, and in Great Britain by Viking. It was the winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1989.
Shortly after the end of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the newspaper Stars and Stripes publishes an article chronicling a series of brutal, ritualistic murders in Far East Asia. All of the victims have had their eyes and ears removed, and each was found with a playing card slipped into his or her mouth with the word "KOKO" written on it.
Shortly thereafter, a reunion of Vietnam War veterans is held at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC. Four survivors of a doomed platoon—Michael Poole (a pediatrician plagued by grief over the death of his young son from cancer and ambivalence about his marriage), Tina Pumo (owner of a Vietnamese restaurant), Conor Linklater (a journeyman construction worker) and Harry Beevers (an opportunistic lawyer)—gather to discuss the Koko killings. Because the word "Koko" holds special significance to the members of their platoon, and because the killings recall the events in a series of books he wrote, the men believe that the killer is Tim Underhill, another member of their platoon who disappeared years earlier in southeast Asia. Beevers convinces the men to help him track down Underhill, hoping that later they can sell the story of their adventure to the news media and become millionaires.
While Pumo remains in New York to finish work on his soon-to-be-reopened restaurant, Beevers, Poole, and Linklater travel to Asia in search of Underhill, while the killer travels to America to continue his killing spree, which is meant to atone for an atrocity committed by Beevers and other members of the platoon years earlier, during the war.
Much of the plot is interspersed with flashbacks to the four friends' time in Vietnam. Harry Beevers, the lieutenant of the group, was forceful and merciless. Tina, Conor, and Michael were soldiers in his platoon, along with several other men, most notably Victor Spitalny, a foul-tempered and arrogant young man, and M.O. Dengler, a philosophical and thoughtful man from a small town. After Vietnam, it was said that, while Dengler and Spitalny were traveling together in Bangkok, Dengler was brutally murdered in an alleyway while Spitalny fled the scene. Spitalny has not been accounted for since then (fifteen years before the platoon's trip to Singapore).
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