

And that’s also intentional, I wager (well, I would if I were the wagering sort – which I’m not 😉). Really, with his manners and unending optimism and willingness to selflessly serve others he is a character who’d feel more at ease in 1950s than in our wild 2000s. You’d all want him as an in-law (if you didn’t know better). Odd Thomas is a very likeable character: extremely humble, unprepossessing and caring, self-deprecating, gentle and well-behaved, he is the perfect image of a perfect boy as envisioned by an old-fashioned grandma. The slightly artificial, allegorical character of the novel, which from a certain perspective can be seen as an inherently old-fashioned yet very modernly, thrillingly written moral fable, is discernible from the first sentences – actually, from the moment when we learn that the name of Odd’s town is Pico Mundo.

Odd Thomas is a 20-year-old short order cook he lives in a small, sleepy town and his most fervent wish is – for both the town itself and him in it – to remain this way forever. And I’m happy that I did, even if I won’t be going back to Odd Thomas’s world anytime soon. But Bookstooge highly recommended both Odd Thomas and Lightning, and patiently kept recommending it, until I finally grabbed the book and read it. I did read a King or two, and didn’t enjoy it, and I didn’t expect to change my mind for Koontz. Somehow I had never been drawn to his work, maybe because I’m no great fan of horror 😉. Koontz is a very prolific writer he wrote over a hundred books and plenty of short stories, and has been a household name for American horror/thriller genre for ages.
