Odd Thomas
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| Author | Dean Koontz |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Thriller, Mystery |
| Publisher | Bantam Publishing |
| Publication date | 2003 |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 496 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-58449-9 |
| Followed by | Forever Odd |
Odd Thomas is a thriller novel by American writer Dean Koontz, published in 2003. The novel derives its title from the protagonist, a twenty-year-old short-order cook named Odd Thomas. The book, which was well received and applauded by critics, went on to become a New York Times Bestseller. Following the success of the novel, two sequels, Forever Odd (2005), and Brother Odd (2006) were also written by Koontz.
Plot Summary
Odd Thomas is silently approached by the ghost of Penny Calisto, a young girl brutally raped and murdered, and through his unique ability to understand the dead, is psychically led to her killer. After Odd finds him and confronts him about his undiscovered crime, the man flees through a neighborhood in Pico Mundo and into the house of an unsuspecting family. Eventually, Odd and the police apprehend the murderer and take him into custody.
Odd is heavily disturbed by these events, but nonetheless decides to go to work to the nearby restaurant, where he is a short-order cook. While cooking, he sees a suspicious looking man followed by bodachs, shadowy spirit creatures who appear only during times of death and disaster. This man, who Odd nicknames "Fungus Man" because of his mushroom-like countenance, has an unusually large swarm of bodachs following him, and Odd is convinced that this man is connected to some terrible catastrophe that's about to occur. In order to gather more information about this potentially dangerous man, Odd uses his gift of supernatural intuition, which his soulmate Bronwen (a.k.a. Stormy) Llywellyn calls "psychic magnetism," to track him down.
Odd's sixth sense leads him to Fungus Man's home, where Odd silently breaks in and investigates. Instead of finding a study through one door of the house, Odd encounters a mysterious dark room that transports him backward in time and, after reentering, forward in time. Odd sees hundreds of bodachs slinking out of that dark room, and he's convinced that this room is a temporary portal into the hellish birthplace of these creatures. The room unexplainably returns to a study filled with information about serial killers and gruesome homicides, further convincing him of Fungus Man's evil intentions. Odd further discovers that his real name is Robert Robertson, and inside a file cabinet containing profiles of famous murderers, Robertson's own file only contains the next day's calendar page.
Concerned, Odd contacts Chief Porter, who understands Odd's supernatural gift and agrees to follow Robertson once Robertson returns to his home. Later that evening, as Odd is having a picnic dinner with Stormy in the belltower in her uncle's church, Robertson appears outside the church. Odd and Stormy hastily escape through the sanctuary before Robertson catches them, and Robertson, in his anger, violently desecrates the church.
Odd remembers a disturbing dream that a coworker and good friend Viola had told him that morning, and he and Stormy visit her later that evening. Not only do they discover bodachs clambering underneath the beds of her two daughters, but Viola's vivid dream of her own death coincides with a recurring dream Odd has had involving several people murdered with automatic weapons. Odd warns her about the impending danger and recommends that she remain at her sister's house.
After Odd drops Stormy off at her apartment and returns home, he discovers the body of Robert Robertson in his bathroom and the murder weapon on his floor. Convinced that Robertson has an accomplice who's trying to frame him, he transports the body to an abandoned building. That evening, Odd finds out that Chief Porter has been shot, although his wounds aren't fatal and he will eventually survive. Throughout the coming morning, Odd takes caffeine pills and consumes soda and doughnuts to stay awake, determined to prevent the atrocity from occurring. His psychic magnetism leads him to an uncomfortable encounter with his father, a man selfishly interested in younger women and get-rich-quick schemes, and to his mother, who's psychotic obsession with threatening her own suicide with a gun has traumatized Odd ever since he was a kid. He realized that the action of his mom holding the gun against her chest reminded him of Robertson's own gun wound, and Odd returned to the already-decomposing body to discover that Robertson possessed a tattoo which matched that of a police officer Odd had recognized. His now-focused psychic magnetism leads him to the Pico Mundo shopping mall, where Odd encounters the shooters and disables them one by one. He is wounded in the back and reawakes in the hospital, where everybody congratulated him on his heroic behavior. However, after reuniting with Stormy Llywellyn and spending many silent evenings escaping media attention, Odd's friends tell him that Stormy was shot in the massacre and he had been visited instead by her ghost. Heartbroken, Odd allows Stormy to pass into the next world, understanding that letting her go is necessary for both of them. In the end, Odd Thomas finally declares that throughout all of the experiences and events in his life, he is "at peace."
Characters
Odd Thomas
"I see dead people. But then, by God, I do something about it." -Odd Thomas pg. 32 Odd is a short-order cook at a breakfast joint in Pico Mundo. His girlfriend is Stormy. Little Ozzie is his best friend. Odd leads a simple life because he has to. He finds the job of speaking to the lingering dead complicated enough.
Stormy Llewellyn
Odd's destiny. Stormy's real name is Bronwen, but she prefers to be called Stormy because she thinks Bronwen makes her sound like an elf. She is the manager of an ice cream shop and hopes to own a shop of her own soon. Stormy's parents died when she was very young. She was adopted by a couple when she was 7. Her foster father sexually molested her in ways that made her feel scared and humiliated. She insists on waiting for sex with Odd, hoping to make their first time together a meaningful experience.
Chief Porter
The Chief helps Odd many times, acting almost as a surrogate father. He is one of the few people that know Odd sees the dead. He is shot by one of the people who would later shoot people at the mall, but survives.
Robert Thomas "Fungus Man" Robertson
Fungus Man or Robert Thomas Robertson is the main antagonist. He comes to Pico Mundo surrounded by bodachs and immediately Odd is suspicious of him. Little is explained about Robertson directly. Odd finds that he is obsessed with serial killers as evidenced by the files he keeps on them. Robertson was approached by Eckles, Varner, and Gosset a few months before the incident at the Green Moon Mall. They were interested only in his mother's money. They convinced Robertson to convert to their own form of satanism. Eckles, Varner, and Gosset kill Robertson's mother (with his permission) and gave him her ears as a trophy. Robertson then moves to Pico Mundo in a desolate neighborhood called Camp's End. Robertson is killed by his fellow conspirators when Eckles learns that Odd is on to him. Robertson then becomes one of the lingering dead and stalks Odd for a short time as a poltergeist. When Robertson's ghost confronts Odd at his home, he goes into an uncontrolable rage, destroying much of the kitchen. Odd leaves him there in the house where he is assumed to still be haunting.
Bern Eckles, Simon Varner, and Kevin Gosset
These three were the people who had conspired with Robert Thomas Robertson to have a mass killing at the mall. The three had gotten involved in ritualistic satanism as teenagers and first killed when they were 15 on a "dare." They pledged their loyalty to their dark god, vowing to go into careers in which they could promote satanism. Varner and Eckles became cops, while Gosset became a schoolteacher. Varner had killed Robert Thomas Robertson after he found out that he had been chasing Odd. He killed Robert Thomas Robertson to look like Odd had killed him. Eckles and Varner were the two gunmen that Odd subdued; Eckles first with the bat then Varner with the shot to the head. Gosset had shot Odd when he disarmed the bomb. Gosset later told everything that had happened between all the conspirators. They called the atrocity "just another way of worshipping."
Little Ozzie
Nicknamed 'little' despite being larger than his father, Ozzie has a 6th finger on his left hand and has published many detective novels. He has a pet cat named Terrible Chester who Ozzie claims is over 50 years old.
External links
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