"Odd Thomas" is a Standard Koontz, but A Good Page Turner

“Odd Thomas”, by Dean Koontz, is another page turner. However, I refuse to dismiss Dean Koontz as a bestseller factory. I often think that while it’s not the best literature, authors like Koontz create memorable characters and are able to speak to a wide readership. That’s a skill, despite what literary snobs say. A lot of people who criticize those who sell a lot of books are often just jealous, or think that it’s somehow undermining literature, when it’s really not. Stephanie Meyer is the best example of that. Having a lot of people read helps literature, even if the book in their hands has the byline “James Patterson.” Another thing I would like to note is that we can’t always read masterpieces. I’m feeling a bit of literary guilt at the moment because I’m reading an old paperback of “Phantoms”, another Dean Koontz thriller instead of the best reviewed book of the year, “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green. I’m sure John Green is a fine writer, but I don’t want to read about kids who have cancer. It’s the summer time and I just want to read something that’s totally not happening in the real world. When someone dies in “Phantoms”, it’s almost like a horror movie instead of a thought provoking exploration of mortality.

So, Odd Thomas lives in the desert town of Pico Mundo, California. He is fry cook. Basically, Pico Mundo is a little nowhere town with a mall. He is a seemly normal twenty year old guy, except for the fact he can see dead people. They talk to him, he sees them all over the place, and even hangs out with Elvis’s ghost occasionally. One of the things Koontz does well is throw in humor. However, with this story, he also throws in a sense of mystery. One day a guy comes into the restaurant, that Odd feels weird about. Oh, I should mention his actual name is Odd. He starts to become concerned that the mystery man is up to something. So, after work, he follows him back home, and sneaks into his house. He finds files on murderers.

He goes to the local police chief, Wyatt Porter, and tells him about what he found. The chief isn’t totally convinced, but he says he’ll keep an eye on the man, because he trusts Odd and they have a father/son relationship. Another thing Koontz does well is mix genres. This is a bit of a supernatural tale, romance and a mystery wrapped into one. The romance is with Stormy, who is the manager of an ice cream shop. One of the things I like about Koontz is his characters are often not people we would consider interesting right away. When you read Stephen King, often his characters are doctors or novelists, and of course, they are going to be interesting. They have cool jobs. Koontz, more often, likes his characters to be fry cooks or work at the mall.

So, we get the usual dose of suspense and action that we expect from a Koontz novel.  There’s a bomb in the mall, suspense and chase scenes. The book, no surprise, opens on a chase scene. Odd chases down a murderer/child molester after the ghost come to him and tell him what the guy did.  One of the things Koontz loves to do is weave in morality into his stories. Koontz said in an interview he never gets on a soap box, but I see plenty of things that are a bit of a morality tale. In real life, Koontz is pretty religious, and it can be seen in his novels. The villain in “Odd Thomas” trashes a church. One of the things Koontz does is throw in sappy stuff. There’s a scene towards the end that was really sappy, but he redeems himself by giving it a twist I didn’t really see coming.


Towards the second half of the book, it gets to be a bit long with a lot of characters showing up like Odd’s crazy mother and immature dad. However, the book isn’t overly long. It only runs about 400 pages, but I felt that some of the people Odd does go to visit towards the end were kind of just filling up back story. Like Koontz figured we needed to know about Odd’s family through more than just detailed dialogue. I’m all for back story, and I actually think it’s useful that Koontz has us visit Odd’s mom and dad, who are crazy. However, it should have been a bit earlier in the book.

As I said earlier, Koontz is good at writing page turners, and there’s really nothing wrong with that. He does tend to repeat himself at times, but a lot of writers do that. I can forgive Koontz for sometimes being a bit sappy and preachy, because the man does know how to write good characters and keep the reader turning pages. That’s a skill any good writer of stories must process, and Koontz is very good at that. Oh, and there’s also a lot of characters in his books. They are all pretty quirky, but I don’t see people complaining about J.K. Rowling have a lot of characters in her books. I read online there’s going to be a movie. My ticket’s already bought.