Lightning

Author: Dean Koontz

The second best of Koontz's novels (the best was 'Strangers') uses time-travel as a device by Adolf Hitler to change the outcome of WW2. (It didn't end too well for Adolf, and I guess he would like it to be different!) So he sends out agents to tweak things, but it seems like they don't always end up in the same universe, and that makes thing difficult. Like where is what happening and when? Confusing! Why it's on the list: Well, it's Koontz, who, when he doesn't go off the rails with weirdo stuff, is a totally absorbing story teller. The time-travel element is complicated and unpredictable, but with one saving grace: paradoxes are not allowed to exist. Meaning you can't run into yourself for example; or go back to the point in time where you've been before. But you can do things in the past, like sending messages to the future, that will make people behave differently. That's the sneaky way of changing the future. Good fun and hard to put down.