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Book: Odd Thomas
Author: Dean Koontz
My Rating: 8/10

So when I first heard about this book, I was intrigued. I was told it was about a young guy who can see and talk to ghosts, and solve crimes or something in the process. Spooky, I'm in!

When I first opened the book, I was taken aback at how slow it was to really pick up and get the reader on "the same page". The author himself, Dean, has a very particular writing style/format in which he writes in almost all of his books. As an avid Dean Koontz reader, I feel like I can attest to this with confidence.
The style? He likes to drop the reader in the middle of an ongoing story line, then proceeds to explain said story line for the next 200-300 pages. You learn about the characters and why they were doing what they were doing on page 5, you learn about the environment in which the rest of the story will take place ( and it seems about 80% of it is based in a Southern California setting, not surprising since that's where the author is currently living). The other 10% of the time, its located in an area that resembles his home state, Pennsylvania.

This particular story took place in the California town of Pico Mundo. Odd Thomas is our main character. He is a short order cook at a local diner. The story, per his style, drops you into the beginning of Odd's morning routine. In his routine he is approached by a small girl whom he know's as Penny. Penny herself isn't that important in the sense of being an ongoing character, but she is important as in she let's you in on Odd's dirty little secret. She's dead, and he can see and talk to her. Penny leads Odd to her killer and from there, our story really begins. Odd continues on with his day after pursuing Penny's killer, and goes to work at the diner. On this day while he's preparing diner's food requests, Odd notices a man who seems rather out of place from the rest of the hungry customers. Not only did this gentleman have peach fuzz for hair, wear mustard yellow and gray clothing, have pasty skin, and a devilish look in his eye...he also had followers. Bodachs to be exact. These creatures are shadowy forms who follow pain and suffering. They usually proceed death and seem to feed off of any pain inflicted on the reaper's victims. Odd was struck by this sight not only because of the Bodachs by the man's side, but because of how MANY there were. So he decides to investigate. He ends up finding himself inside the odd looking man's house, who we now know at this point as "Fungus Man". Because the Bodachs usually predict a horrible event, Odd felt that he needed to figure out what that was and how he could stop it.
From this point on in the book, we follow Odd as he is convinced this "Fungus Man" is up to no good. That's literally 90% of the book. As for the other 10%, we get to see Odd and who he claims to be his soulmate, Stormy. How he wants to marry her one day, about her past (because if it's a new character being introduced, of course we have to know everything!), and how they mesh so well together.

Overall, this book was not a bad read. I was able to complete it within a week's time and I look forward to reading the next book in the Odd Thomas series, because it's a big one for this author.