Odd Hours

Dean Koontz

When Odd Thomas drove off from the monastery in Brother Odd, he followed his intuition to Magic Beach, a coastal town in California. He takes work cooking for the older, retired, silver screen actor Hutch Hutchinson. He's been there about a month. He's been having nightmares of red skies and red tides. A woman he sees down at the pier seems to be involved in these visions. Odd knows it is time to discover what he has to do to prevent the future he keeps seeing.

On this day Odd is chatting with Annamaria, the woman at the pier, when three men approach. Odd knows that now is the time. He is able to get the pregnant woman away and faces the thugs himself. After his eventual escape, he goes on to a strange group of happenings that he must follow if he is to prevent the mass destruction that keeps haunting his dreams. By the end of this terrible night Odd will face situations and people he never thought he would see.

Odd Hours is not the charming book we've come to expect from Odd Thomas, despite the evil he faced in the earlier books. This sequel is darker and leaves Odd more damaged emotionally than the last two books (none can be as damaging to the character as the first book was). Odd's paranormal senses are strong and foreboding as he works through the twists of the night's events.

The novel starts slowly - I thought we'd never get Odd out from under the pier. That section went on too long, in my opinion. After that it picked up and moved along well. Some of the antagonist characters are truly evil, some in it scheme for the money, some for the thrill, and some for the loyalty and vision of a better future. Despite the motives, the outcome would be the same, an annihilation of the United States.

There are some interesting good characters as well, from the vague and narcissistic Hutch Hutchinson to the amazing Birdie Hopkins. To add to the atmosphere, Dean Koontz added a supernatural fog that permeates the story. It is constant, hiding everything that could and does happen.

Overall, people who have already met Odd Thomas should like this book. It's not the best one to start with, though. In this book Odd has to do things he never wanted to, making him, and the novel, darker.

Notice: Graphic violence

Odd Thomas
Forever Odd
Brother Odd
Odd Hours
Odd Apocalypse