Dean Ray Koontz

In ELSEWHERE, master storyteller Dean Koontz, has created a brilliant and terrifying speculative thriller with hat-tips to George Orwell, Ray Bradbury and HG Wells.
In the little South Californian town of Suavidad Beach, Jeff Coltrane is raising his daughter Amity on his own, ever since his wife Michelle went missing seven years ago. He's doing a pretty good job of it, and though Amity misses her mom she pours her excess love into her pet mouse Snowball: she's on a promise for her own puppy if she proves she can take good care of the mouse.

Then one day their itinerant friend Ed - known locally as 'Mr Spooky' - hands into Jeff's care a small box containing 'the key to everything',