This is the first Dean Koontz I’ve read, people have told me it isn’t his best. The first book, Odd Thomas, I really enjoyed. Mainly for the characters, expecially the protagonist Odd. This isn’t horror, nothing in this is gory or terrifying to read. This is dark fantasy, regardless of what Amazon says:

Odd Thomas is one of Dean Koontz’s more heavily moralised horror thrillers, but is nonetheless charming and terrifying. Odd is an adolescent on the brink of adulthood who sees dead people and has a worryingly precise moral sense; the police chief of the small town of Pico Mundo–little world–relies on him heavily. Hardly has the book opened before a dead teenager leads Odd to her killer–and we are given to understand that this is the sort of thing that happens all the time. He does not just see the dead, however; he sees the thrill-seeking dark spirits that hang around unpleasant events, and he notices, on this particular day, that there are a lot more of them about than usual. Odd is haunted by dreams of dead bowling-alley staff and he wonders whether this might just be the day when the bowling-alley massacre takes place. The tone of voice here is almost saccharine, almost sinister–Odd and his friends and his sweetheart are vivid, cute and self-righteous. This is a bizarrely paced thriller because it follows the vagaries of an eccentric with his own ways of investigating things–it is as odd as its hero’s name. –Roz Kaveney

The second book picks Odd up a few months after the end of Odd Thomas, it isn’t as good as the first book as Koontz is reliant on the plot, not the bevvy of bizarre characters. Most of the book is Odd on his own, it doesn’t work anything like as well. Worth reading but a dissapointment after book one.

This is the follow-up novel to “Odd Thomas”, from worldwide bestselling author, Dean Koontz. Odd Thomas, that unlikely hero, once more stands between us and our worst fears. Odd never asked to communicate with the dead - they sought him out. As the unofficial goodwill ambassador between our world and theirs, he has a duty to do the right thing. That’s the way Odd sees it, and that’s why he has already won over hearts on both sides of the great divide. For, though Odd lives in the small desert town of Pico Mundo, he stands between two worlds, and for him the heroic and the harrowing are everyday occurrences. A childhood friend of Odd’s has disappeared and the worst is feared. But as Odd applies his unique talents to the task of finding the missing person, he discovers something worse than a dead body. New allies and new enemies gather around Odd, some living and some not. But the enemy he encounters is unspeakably cunning, and every sacrifice is needed to tip the balance between despair and hope as a life-changing revelation rushes towards us. In the battle to come, there can be no innocent bystanders…

Would I read more Dean Koontz now? Probably, I’m not into gore horror novels. The gentle languous pace of these two books suited me fine; not sure if his other work is at all similar.

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