Tick Tock

Tommy Phan is a successful detective novelist living the American dream in southern California. One evening he comes home to find a small rag doll on his doorstep. It's a simple doll, covered entirely in white cloth, with crossed black stitches on the eyes and mouth and another pair forming an X over the heart. Curious, he brings it inside.
That night Tommy hears an odd popping sound and looks up to see the stitches breaking over the doll's heart. And in minutes the fabric of Tommy Phan's reality will be torn apart. Something terrifying emerges from the pristine white cloth, something that will follow Tommy wherever he goes. Something he can't destroy. It wants Tommy's life, and he doesn't know why. He has only one ally, a beautiful intuitive waitress he meets by chance- or by a design far beyond his comprehension.
And the vicious and demonically clever doll has left this warning on Tommy's computer screen: The deadline is dawn.
This is an older Dean Koontz book, I think from 1996 and somehow I missed it. It was not the best of Koontz's work but it kept me entertained and turning pages to find out how Tommy Phan gets out of that mess.