Forever Odd

Forever Odd Dean Koontz 6/10

Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas is purportedly his most well-liked creation. Koontz is a popular dog-loving Californian writer with a penchant for mixing the supernatural into his mystery and/or adventure stories (normally with a heartwarming bit of romance).

Forever Odd eschews romance in favor of a stronger emphasis on the supernatural: the protagonist, Odd Thomas, can see ghosts. He can talk to them, but they sadly (and sometimes amusingly) lack the ability to talk back. The majority of the story is a murder mystery where Thomas tries to find the killer who kidnapped his best friend and killed that friend’s father. He relies on his improbably accurate intuition to follow the killer through an intriguing path involving villains even more odd than me.

This is the second book in the series, and a few of the familiar characters return. His old boss (from his days as a fry cook at a local burger joint) and mother figure gives him solid advice, and the tragic yet morbidly amusing ghost of Elvis plays a small part as well. Ozzie, the fat chef and writer, makes an appearance along with his strangely terrifying cat Terrible Chester.

I enjoyed Forever Odd, but I won’t be actively looking to read the other books in the series. I think I read so much Koontz as a teenager that I’m a little too familiar with his writing style. He’s a very prolific writer – I’m sure he has over fifty books, of which I’ve read more than twenty. Perhaps I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I could have because, at the current stage in my life, I’m looking for lessons. I’m looking for purposeful writing with a message. Some find it condescending: like the author takes on a role of moral superiority by ‘lecturing’ us on right and wrong, mature and immature, or good and evil, but lately I’m able to put aside my pride and try to glean whatever wisdom I can from a story. “Forever Odd” was an intriguing, engaging, and funny story. I read it in two days, hardly able to put it down (though that seems to happen with 90% of the books I pick up) until I was finished. Koontz knows how to entertain, and he shows it once again with “Forever Odd”.