Finished with Odd Hours by Dean Koontz

I polished off Odd Hours last night and now I have that feeling you get when you know you won't be seeing one of your good friends or relatives anytime soon.

In Odd Hours Oddie is back to save the world. His powers have changed in a surprising way (see link below to learn how you can get a sneak peek which will reveal this to you!) and he becomes enmeshed in a mystery that has the world as we know it in the balance.

This was one of the more violent Odd Thomas books that I have read, but really the violence is justified. You know how Odd is, he walks right into trouble courtesy of his psychic magnetism. He still mourns the loss of his soul mate, Stormy, and it doesn't seem like Oddie is getting a break saving the world for long. The time span between Odd Thomas and Odd Hours is only about 18 months. Odd has certainly not had much time off to relax!

Filled with a menagerie of odd and loveable secondary characters, Odd isn't totally alone in his quest to save us all from nuclear annihilation. The cast of supporting characters lend a lot of reality to the text and some of the dialog the passes between he and them is hard to follow, yet makes sense much later. Such is the life of Odd Thomas. Everything is a mystery that is revealed in its own time.

Boo is back and so is Frank Sinatra. One particular scene with Ole Blue Eyes was particularly spectactular and patriotic all at the same time.

If I had to rank the Odd Thomas series of books based on how well I liked the plot and overall storyline, I'd rank them in this order:

1 - Odd Thomas
2 - Forever Odd
3 - Odd Hours
4 - Brother Odd

Yes, this book was, in my humble opinion, better than Brother Odd, which I really liked too.

So, soon enough I will be packaging up Odd Hours and mailing it off to my sister for her to read. I spoke with her last weekend and told her I bought the book. She was excited to know that it would be coming her way soon.

Dean Koontz' Odd Hours coming May 20th - get a sneak peek !

If you are a fan of the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz, be sure to check out the Odd Thomas page on Mr. Koontz' site! Odd Hours, the fourth installment of the Odd Thomas series is debuting on May 20th. I already checked my library and there are 55 people ahead of me in the queue. I think I'll be buying this copy instead!

When I visited the author's site tonight, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could read the first two chapters of Odd Hours by signing up. After I signed up, a link was provided for me to read the content. All I have to say is wow!

A huge fan of Odd Thomas, I began reading the series when the Penguin had a channel on BzzAgent (I really, really miss that as I found lots of great books to read.) In that case, I had gotten an excerpt of the last book, Brother Odd, and was so intrigued I went back and read the previous books in the series.

What intrigues me about this series is the main character, Odd Thomas, and his uncanny abilities. I seem to have a preference for books dealing with dead people I guess since I read the Harper Connelly mysteries by Charlaine Harris as well as a few other macabre mystery authors.

Getting back to the two chapter excerpt, reading it was like bumping into an old friend. Odd Thomas is such a likable character and you really feel his pain. The poor guy has been through a lot in just 21 years of life! These two chapters will have you riveted to your seat and begging for more, or more to the point, wanting to run out on May 20th to grab your own copy to begin unraveling his latest adventure, not to mention find out just why Frank Sinatra is hanging out with Odd now that Elvis has gone home!

Links:

Dean Koontz' website

Odd Thomas' web page

Be sure to check out the webisodes!