Dean Koontz writes a tale of good and evil, and how the concepts influence people's lives.

The book begins with three separate stories that eventually intertwine: a loving relationship between a mother and her genius son, a ruthless killer, and a young woman who takes it upon herself to raise her late sister's baby.

Agnes gets soaked in the weather, but not a single drop touched Barty, as he says, "I ran where the rain wasn't."

A doctor informs Barty and his mother that he has a rare cancer that would spread to his brain if his eyes weren't removed.

Agnes Lampion is Bartholomew's (Barty) mother who is an extremely kind woman who helps others by providing her faith, hope, and occasionally a pie.

Her brothers are wary of the house after their father's death, for too many painful memories occurred there, but Agnes tries to wash the horrid suffering away by replacing the terrible reminders with happier ones in their new family.

Agnes is one of the characters who represent everything good in the world, while even though she is innocent and a better person than a large chunk of today's population, terrible things still happen to her.

Her character shows that while you may have done nothing wrong, bad things happen and it's important to hold faith because when one door closes a new one opens.

It was later revealed that he did this for financial benefit, profiting from the state paying him compensation to avoid a civil lawsuit, as Junior would have triumphed in resulting litigation if he had decided to do so, claiming the bridge wasn't maintained adequately.

In the end, his assumption his offspring would bring about his undoing is true as he is ultimately pushed into another world by Angel after trying to kill Barty and being distracted by his nemesis, Detective Vanadium, leaving the killer trapped there.

Celestina, or Celie to friends, befriends Dr. Walter Lipscomb, the doctor who delivered Angel when the doctor tells her Seraphim flatlined once before Celestina arrived at the hospital and told him 'Rowena loves you, Beezil and Feezil are safe with her' -the names and nicknames of Dr. Lipscomb's late wife and sons who died in a plane crash- names that Seraphim could not have possibly known.

Though they are worlds apart in both education and race (the book set in the mid-1960s where interracial relationships were unheard of) Celestina develops feelings for Walter which he reciprocates but both are too shy to admit them.

Eventually Junior Cain in his madness locates her after stalking her from the art show and attacks, shooting Wally in the chest and trying to break into the house to kill Seraphim's child.

She finally ends her father's reign of terror by pushing him into another world, which she says was a picture she drew of giant insects.

Edom later marries Agnes's English student and good friend Maria Gonzalez, a Mexican woman, and he opens his own florist's shop.