mystery

I enjoy Koontz's work best when it's about this length--399 pages. His longer stories seem to always lose momentum. "Odd Thomas" though, is a fast read filled with quirky characters, a unique setting and some insights into Koontz's take on society, culture and writing if you're alert to them.

Odd Thomas is an interesting, likeable character, (similar to Chris Snow from Seize the Night and Fear Nothing but I like Oddie even better.) Odd sees dead people, brings justice to their killers when he can and fries burgers for a living when he can't. For a switch this time, the hero is a lot more interesting than the villains. Odd's got a tender/tough girlfriend to deal with, a fatherly police chief to aid, dysfunctional parents to figure out and the spirit of Elvis lending an enigmatic hand.

The other highlights of this book are the unpredictable story, the insight into Thomas' family life which is effective but not overdone, and some of the bizarre qualities of the small town of Pico Mundo.

I think there's another story in this Odd Thomas, but I'm glad Koontz didn't try to drag this one out. It's a great read as is, better than most of his recent novels, and more like the classic Koontz.

Dean Koontz's new book "Odd Thomas" show that Koontz can still write an engaging tale after all of these years. Gone is the lightning-in-a-bottle that he had earlier in his career (I don't need to mention the books that built his following) but, to me, "Odd Thomas" brought Koontz back from the brink of irrelevance. Compared to recent clunkers like "By the Light of the Moon" and "Corner of His Eye", this book is a huge leap in the right direction, a movement that he started last year with "The Face". At least its nice to see that he has gone beyond his fascination with writing about cleaning up crap after your dog.

The book contains a tale written by the title Character, Odd Thomas, after disturbing events have occurred in his home town. Odd Thomas is a loner who, unbeknownst to all but a close group of acquaintances, has the ability to see and communicate with the dead and other malevolent spirits. Sounds familiar, I know, but Koontz is able to put a very original spin on this tale. The character Odd Thomas was developed with a great deal more depth than most those of Koontz's recent books. Not since China in "Intensity" have we seen a character developed so well by the author. Odd Thomas has had this ability for most of his life, and while he is not full comfortable with the situation, he has come to terms with it. Through his skills, Odd becomes aware of a very bad situation that is developing in his town, which he feels he has the ability to avert if he takes immediate action. This storyline represents bulk of the novel, but more fascinating is the character Odd Thomas himself and how he deal with the situation that he is thrust into. One particularly interesting subplot involves his interactions with his family, which is even more unusual than Odd himself.

The story is above average, but read this book for the characters themselves. Hopefully this upward trend in Dean Koontz's books will continue for at least a little longer.

This was the first time I had ever read a book by Dean Koontz. I had always heard about him, but never knew what type of books he wrote and never read one for myself. Until now. I was not disappointed. This was a great book. I had a hard time getting started, but once I did, it moved right along. There were some slow spots (hence the 4 stars) and some useless subplots to the story as well. But, overall, the book moved right along and had some good surprising twists to it. The ending was a surprise to me as I had never read a Koontz book before, or I just wasn't looking for it. 4 stars! Well worth the read and a good one to read again someday once you've had time to forget about it.