Odd but Oh So Clever!

I just finished Odd Thomas and I got to tell you the book was well named. In fact not just the protagonist 'Odd Thomas' (his name) was odd, the whole story was odd, in a Stephen King sort of way. That's not to detract from Mr.Koontz who is a fine writer but I couldn't help but feel a King influence in this story albeit with the benefit of Koontz's more consistent writing. Whatever, influence King had on Koontz, to me, is a moot point for Odd Thomas was a wonderful, infectious read, better in it's way than most of King's books

The Plot

Typical Good versus Evil and in this case, Malevolent parties are preparing to strike a major blow in the fictional small city/large town of Pico Mundo located in the Central Valley, Mojave Desert area of California. However Pico Mundo has a wild card and his name is Odd Thomas.

Odd Thomas is a twenty year old fry cook extraordinaire at the local cafe called the Grill. In addition he has a gift or curse, depending on how you look at it. Odd can see ghosts/spirits or whatever you want to call them. He can also sense danger and in some cases he is prescient through his dreams. I addition to his ability to see spirits, Odd can also see Bodachs, black apparitions of no substance that seem to congregate at places of human pain, suffering and agony. These are ominous creatures that Odd has no idea where they come from or what they are but when he sees them, he knows that something bad has happened or is about to happen.

The Story

Odd is a humble, likable, not particularly ambitious fellow but he's also an oddity with his special gifts and only a few of his closest friends know about his paranormal abilities. This cadre consist of his girlfriend Stormy, the Grill owner, Terri, Police Chief Porter and the eccentric, reclusive, obese, book writer, Little Ozzie who at 5'8" and over four hundred pounds is far from little. Odd, whose useless parents are living, is like a surrogate son to Chief Porter and Odd has helped the Chief clear up some crimes a time or two. In fact this very morning, with the help of a victim's Ghost and no one else, Odd apprehends the girls murderer.

This same day, as he is doing his fry cook thing, he also notices a creepy looking guy, whom Odd dubs Fungus Man. While Fungus Man, who later turns out to be Bob Robertson, is seated at the counter, several Bodachs come up to and hang around, eventually leaving with him.

This is portentous, for Bodachs, who seem to be visible to no one else except Odd, are attracted to tragedies, the more cataclysmic, the more Bodach observers. Later as Odd is waiting for Stormy, the love of his life to get off work from her job at an ice cream store, He notices Fungus Man, again followed by Bodachs, exiting the store with a couple pints of ice cream, so Odd decides to follow him.

Fungus Man heads for his house where he stays for only a few moments, giving Odd the opportunity to search the house. What he encounters there is so strange, it almost defies description. He also discovers that Fungus Man's idols are serial and mass murderers and that he is a mass murderer wannabe and furthermore tomorrow is the scheduled day of infamy.

Conclusion

I must admit, once I got into this book, I found it to be an intriguing read as good as some of Koontz's best. Koontz did not meander too much on details as he did in previous novels and the writing was crisp and fresh (sounds like a salad, doesn't it?). Well it was, plus Koontz seems to be perfecting a humorous side as he had me chucking out loud on more than one occasion, like when Little Ozzie called up Odd and said his cow exploded. I won't say anything more about the humor because I don't want to spoil it for you.

The character development was excellent, the good guys were very good and you loved them and of course the bad guys, as Daffy Duck would say, were despicable. It should also be noted that Koontz wrote this book entirely in the first person, which means it didn't bounce around like a tennis match. The book, at just under four hundred pages, is concise and easily digested, especially for Koontz. I give Mr Koontz kudos for this one. final rating 4.5 stars.