Odd Thomas
2003
- cooks
- mediums
- murderers
- fiction
- paranormal fiction
- fiction, horror
- fiction, psychological
- deserts
- young men
The story
Over the course of two days, Odd Thomas, his soulmate Stormy Llewellyn, and an assortment of allies make their way through a dark, terrifying world in which past and present, and life and death collide as they try to avert a cataclysm.
What it’s like
Wry, breezy first-person voice carrying a dread that never quite lets up: a short-order cook in a sun-scorched desert town who sees the dead, and whose jokes and small-town tenderness sit uneasily against the menace gathering around him. The prose moves quickly through diner counters, hot asphalt, dusty roadside motels and cool, shadowed interiors, with the desert heat and the sharp smell of fry oil made nearly tangible. Ghostly apparitions appear in ordinary places with a quiet, unnerving stillness, and the atmosphere swings between wide, lonely emptiness and claustrophobic, pulse-quickening tension. The horror is psychological and suspenseful more than gory: there is violence and a murderer's presence that can be sharp and frightening, but its impact comes from anticipation and unease rather than graphic detail. Sexual content is minimal and the romance stays warm and earnest. It suits a late-night read alone, or a long stretch on a plane, for readers who want a bit of supernatural mystery with humour, heart and a steady, creeping sense of dread, but not a tidal wave of gore.
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