Reviewed by John Cairns
Dean Koontz strikes again and again, delivering one great book after another. Forever Odd (2006, HarperCollins, 419 pages) about Odd Thomas, a young restaurant cook with a tendency to see ghosts and communicate with them, satisfies the author’s high standards.
The desert town of Pico Mundo attracts many ghosts, among them Elvis Presley. Odd Thomas knows. He’s seen them.
“Living every day with proof that the afterlife is real, I can’t take refuge in unleavened reason, can’t say ‘but ghosts don’t really exist’. Not knowing the full nature of what comes after this world, but knowing for certain that something does, my imagination spins into vortexes darker than any yours has ever visited.”
When Dr Wilbur Jessup, the father of Odd’s handicapped pal Danny, appears late at night in the ghost-spotter’s apartment, something’s definitely wrong.
“The lamplight revealed another presence, as patient as he was desperate. Evidently he had been watching me sleep, waiting for me to wake.
I said, ‘Hello, Dr Jessup.’
Dr Wilbur Jessup was incapable of a response. Anguish flooded his face. His eyes were desolate pools; all hope had drowned in those lonely depths.
‘I’m sorry to see you here,’ I said.”
Murdered earlier that night, Dr Jessup has come for help that only Odd can provide. Fearful for Danny, the haunted hero rushes to the murder scene, but his friend’s gone, kidnapped.
“The blood of violence daunts even those with much experience of it. The splash, the spray, the drip and drizzle create infinite Rorschah patterns in every one of which the observer reads the same meaning: the fragility of his existence, the truth of his mortality.
A desperation of crimson hand prints on a wall were the victim’s sign language: Spare me, help me, remember me, avenge me…. This world, which has the potential to be Eden, is instead the hell before Hell. In our arrogance, we have made it so.”
Guided by a sixth sense, Odd trails the culprits to the Panamint, an isolated casino-hotel empty since its near-destruction in a huge fire. It’s “where Death had gone to gamble and had, as always, won”.
In an exciting tale of pursuit and battle, the leading characters face constant dangers. Advantages swing wildly between Odd and his adversaries.
The author’s skills can’t be disputed. Although not everything in Forever Odd makes sense, that’s the norm in Koontz novels full of the supernatural.
Perhaps the biggest flaw involves Datura, a twisted, charismatic and seductive villainess. Although menacing, she lacks much motivation, except for being evil and deeply curious about death and its aftermath. As Danny says, she’s “crazier than a syphilitic suicide bomber with mad-cow disease”.
Originally from Pennsylvania, the prolific Koontz has created many bestsellers, like The Husband, By the Light of the Moon, Mr Murder, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Shattered, Dark Rivers of the Heart and Demon Seed. He lives in California.
This talented author pushes his readers along at a rapid pace, bringing them to the final pages of Forever Odd long before they’re ready. There can never be too many Dean Koontz books.
Approval rating: 80 per cent.
For more information: www.deankoontz.com
(March 13, 2008)
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