Odd Thomas, by Dean Koontz. Published by Bantam Books, December 2003,
399 pgs.
Odd Thomas is a fry cook in a little town called Pico Mundo. He also happens to have strange abilities, in that he sees dead people and occasionally things that enjoy death. The dead frequently want justice for their deaths and Odd Thomas helps them find it. Being a good friend of the Chief of Police allows him to help find their answers. He regularly imagines other jobs, like selling tires or shoes, and perhaps this is his way of wishing for a normal life. Odd Thomas sees an odd man he’s fixing breakfast for. His spider sense alarms and this spirals into a conspiracy, a mysterious room and evil doings, resulting in too many deaths for Odd to prevent and some of his greatest fears are realized. Dean Koontz is the author of many, many thriller and horror novels and I have loved reading him for years. But, this book has me just wanting to get it finished.
The whole book moves very slow, with a story that jumps from various points and friendships in Odd Thomas’s life. They eventually make a point, but you get taken in so many directions, you easily lose your way to that point. The characters are poorly fleshed out and there is little reason to care about why they hang onto Odd, who is insipid at best.
I am not sure where Mr. Koontz was going with this, but it was like he saw the movie where the little boy whispers, “I see dead people” and he decided to write a book, with a little terrorism and mayhem thrown in. I truly had to work to finish this book, and even found it so difficult that I put it aside and read another book in between
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