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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The pistol appeared in his hand the way a dove appears in the hand of a good magician, as if it materialized out of thin air. “You think I won’t do it right here in the open. But you’d be surprised. . . . You’ll drop before you get the breath to scream.”
The truck driver is decked out like a rhinestone cowboy, only instead of a guitar he’s slinging a gun—and Odd Thomas is on the wrong end of the barrel. Though he narrowly dodges a bullet, Odd can’t outrun the shocking vision burned into his mind . . . or the destiny that will drive him into a harrowing showdown with absolute evil.
DEEPLY ODD
How do you make sure a crime that hasn’t happened yet, never does? That’s the critical question facing Odd Thomas, the young man with a unique ability to commune with restless spirits and help them find justice and peace. But this time, it’s the living who desperately need Odd on their side. Three helpless innocents will be brutally executed unless Odd can intervene in time. Who the potential victims are and where they can be found remain a mystery. The only thing Odd knows for sure is who the killer will be: the homicidal stranger who tried to shoot him dead in a small-town parking lot.
With the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock riding shotgun and a network of unlikely allies providing help along the way, Odd embarks on an interstate game of cat and mouse with his sinister quarry. He will soon learn that his adversary possesses abilities that may surpass his own and operates in service to infinitely more formidable foes, with murder a mere prelude to much deeper designs. Traveling across a landscape haunted by portents of impending catastrophe, Odd will do what he must and go where his path leads him, drawing ever closer to the dark heart of his long journey—and, perhaps, to the bright light beyond.
ACCLAIM FOR DEAN KOONTZ AND HIS ODD THOMAS NOVELS
“Koontz gives his character wit, good humor, a familiarity with the dark side of humanity—and moral outrage.”—USA Today
“This is Koontz working at his pinnacle, providing terrific entertainment that deals seriously with some of the deepest themes of human existence: the nature of evil, the grip of fate and the power of love.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Supernatural thrills with a side of laughs.”—The Denver Post
“The nice young fry cook with the occult powers is Koontz’s most likable creation . . . candid, upright, amusing and sometimes withering.”—The New York Times
"I see dead people. But then, by God, I do something about it." In the sixth full-length Odd Thomas novel, our winningly strange justice hunter confronts the ultimate psychic conundrum: How do you stop three murders that haven't happened yet. To solve the problem and save three lives, Odd takes to the road, aided by the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock. (P.S. A film based on the first Odd Thomas book is in the offing.)
Dean Koontz, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Anna, and the enduring spirit of their golden, Trixie.
Koontz has a lifelong love of writing that led him to spend much of his free time as an adult furiously cultivating his style and voice. However, it was only after his wife Gerda made him an offer he couldn't refuse while he was teaching English at a high school outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that he had a real opportunity to make a living with his avocation. Gerda agreed to support Dean for five years, during which time he could try to get his writing career off the ground. Little did she know that by the end of that five years she would be leaving her own job to handle the financial end of her husband's massively successful writing career.
Koontz first burst into the literary world with 1970's Beastchild, a science fiction novel that appealed to genre fans with its descriptions of aliens and otherworldly wars but also mined deeper themes of friendship and the breakdown of communication. Although it is not usually ranked among his classics, Beastchild provided the first inkling of Koontz's talent for populating even the most fantastical tale with fully human characters. Even at his goriest or most terrifying, he always allows room for redemption.
This complexity is what makes Koontz's work so popular with readers. He has a true gift for tempering horror with humanity, grotesqueries with lyricism. He also has a knack for genre-hopping, inventing Hitchcockian romantic mysteries, crime dramas, supernatural thrillers, science fiction, and psychological suspense with equal deftness and imagination. Perhaps The Times (London) puts it best: "Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler."
When Koontz was a senior in college, he won the Atlantic Monthly fiction competition.
Koontz and Kevin Anderson's novel Frankenstein: The Prodigal Son was slotted to become a television series produced by Martin Scorsese. However, when the pilot failed to sell, the USA Network aired it as a TV movie in 2004. By that time Koontz had removed his name from the project.
Some fun and fascinating outtakes from our interview with Koontz:
"My wife, Gerda, and I took seven years of private ballroom dancing lessons, twice a week, ninety minutes each time. After we had gotten good at everything from swing to the foxtrot, we not only stopped taking lessons, but also stopped going dancing. Learning had been great fun; but for both of us, going out for an evening of dancing proved far less exhilarating than the learning. We both have a low boredom threshold. Now we dance at a wedding or other celebration perhaps once a year, and we're creaky."
"On my desk is a photograph given to me by my mother after Gerda and I were engaged to be married. It shows 23 children at a birthday party. It is neither my party nor Gerda's. I am three years old, going on four. Gerda is three. In that crowd of kids, we are sitting directly across a table from each other. I'm grinning, as if I already know she's my destiny, and Gerda has a serious expression, as if she's worried that I might be her destiny. We never met again until I was a senior in high school and she was a junior. We've been trying to make up for that lost time ever since.
"Gerda and I worked so much for the first two decades of our marriage that we never took a real vacation until our twentieth wedding anniversary. Then we went on a cruise, booking a first-class suite, sparing no expense. For more than half the cruise, the ship was caught in a hurricane. The open decks were closed because waves would have washed passengers overboard. About 90% of the passengers spent day after day in their cabins, projectile vomiting. We discovered that neither of us gets seasick. We had the showrooms, the casino, and the buffets virtually to ourselves. Because the crew had no one to serve, our service was exemplary. The ship dared not try to put into the scheduled ports; it was safer on the open sea. The big windows of the main bar presented a spectacular view of massive waves and lightning strikes that stabbed the sea by the score. Very romantic. We had a grand time.
One
Before dawn, I woke in darkness to the ringing of a tiny bell, the thimble-size bell that I wore on a chain around my neck: three bursts of silvery sound, a brief silence after each. I was lying on my back in bed, utterly motionless, yet the bell rang three times again. The vibrations that shivered through my bare chest seemed much too strong to have been produced by such a tiny clapper. A third set of three rings followed, and then only silence. I waited and wondered until dawn crept down the sky and across the bedroom windows.
Later that morning in early March, when I walked downtown to buy blue jeans and a few pairs of socks, I met a guy who had a .45 pistol and a desire to commit a few murders. From that encounter, the day grew uglier as surely as the sun moved from east to west.
My name is Odd Thomas. I have accepted my oddness. And I am no longer surprised that I am drawn to trouble as reliably as iron to a magnet.
Nineteen months ago, when I was twenty, I should have been riddled with bullets in that big-news shopping-mall shoot-out in Pico Mundo, a desert town in California. They say that I saved a lot of people in my hometown. Yet many died. I didn’t. I have to live with that.
Stormy Llewellyn, the girl I loved more than life itself, was one of those who died that day. I saved others, but I couldn’t save her. I have to live with that, too. Living is the price I pay for failing her, a high price that must be paid every morning that I wake.
In the nineteen months since that day of death, I have traveled in search of the meaning of my life. I learn by going where I have to go.
Currently I rented a quaint, furnished three-bedroom cottage in a quiet coastal town a couple of hundred miles from Pico Mundo. The front porch faced the sea, and yellow bougainvillea cascaded across half the roof.
Annamaria, whom I had known only since late January, occupied one of the bedrooms. She appeared to be ready to give birth in about a month, but she claimed that she had been pregnant for a long time and insisted that she would be pregnant longer still.
Although she said many things that I failed to understand, I believed that she always spoke the truth. She was mysterious but not deceptive.
We were friends, never paramours. A lover who is enigmatic will most likely prove to be a cataclysm waiting to happen. But a charming friend whose usual warmth is raveled through with moments of cool inscrutability can be an intriguing companion.
The morning when I set out on a shopping expedition, Annamaria followed me as far as the porch. She said, “Daylight savings time doesn’t start for another five days.”
At the bottom of the steps, I turned to look at her. She wasn’t a beauty, but she wasn’t plain, either. Her clear pale skin appeared to be as smooth as soap, and her large dark eyes, which reflected the sparkling sea, seemed as deep as galaxies. In sneakers, gray-khaki pants, and a baggy sweater, she was so petite that she might have been a child dressed in her father’s clothes.
Not sure why she had mentioned daylight savings time, I said, “I won’t be long. I’ll be back hours before sunset.”
“Darkness doesn’t fall to a predictable schedule. Darkness can overwhelm you any time of the day, as you know too well.”
She once told me that there are people who want to kill her. Although she had said no more and had not identified her would-be murderers, I believed that she was as truthful about this as about all other things.
“I’ll stay here if you’re in danger.”
“You’re the one in danger, young man. Here or there, anywhere, you’re the one perpetually on the cliff’s edge.”
She was eighteen, and I was nearly twenty-two, but when she called me young man, it always felt right. She possessed an air of timelessness, as if she might have lived in any century of recorded history, or in all of them.
“Do what you must,” she said, “but come back to us.”
Do what you must sounded ominously significant, not the language one might use to send a friend off to buy socks.
From behind Annamaria and beyond a window, Tim watched solemnly. Crowding close to him on the left and right, paws on the windowsill, gazing out at me, were our two dogs, a golden retriever named Raphael and a white German shepherd named Boo. Only nine years old, Tim had been with us for over one month, after we rescued him from an estate called Roseland, in the sleepy town of Montecito. I’ve written about that ordeal in a previous volume of these memoirs. We were his only family now. Because of his unique history, we would soon need to fabricate an identity into which he could grow in the years to come.
My life is as odd as my name.
Tim waved at me. I waved at Tim.
Just before stepping out of the house, I had asked the boy if he wanted to accompany me. But with a benign smile, Annamaria had said that neither Xerxes nor Leonidas had invited small children to accompany them to Thermopylae.
In 480 b.c., three hundred Spartans under the command of Leonidas had for a while held at bay two hundred thousand Persians under Xerxes in the battle of Thermopylae, before being slaughtered. I failed to see the similarity between my modest shopping expedition and one of the fiercest military engagements in history.
Even though it is always fruitless to seek an explanation from Annamaria when she makes such baffling statements, I considered asking for amplification. But she had opened the door for me, had waved me out of the kitchen, followed me onto the porch, and stood smiling at me as I looked back at her from the bottom of the steps. The moment to press her for elucidation seemed to have passed.
Annamaria’s smile is so comforting that, in its radiance, you can almost believe that this world offers nothing more threatening than what you’d find in Pooh Corner—in spite of her references to the slaughter of the Spartans.
I said, “The bell rang last night.”
“Yes, I know.”
I didn’t think she could have heard it from her room, through two closed doors.
Previously she had told me that if the bell rang in the night, we would soon thereafter move on to a new place.
She said, “I’ll see you again when the wind blows the water white and black,” and she turned away, retreating into the cottage.
Beyond the beach, the sea spread blue to the horizon. The day remained still and mild, and the sky was so clear that it seemed I should be able to discern the stars in spite of the sunshine that concealed them.
Not mystified but certainly bewildered, I walked north half a mile to the heart of the village, with a wariness that I hadn’t felt minutes earlier. Shaded by ancient California live oaks, the downtown shopping area was a three-lane street flanked by just six blocks of stores, restaurants, and quaint inns. If you wanted a real town, you had to go up the coast to Santa Barbara.
I didn’t know that a guy would soon offer to neuter me or that he would be carrying a pistol fitted with a sound suppressor. I have a psychic gift that occasionally includes a prophetic dream, but when awake, I do not see moments of the future.
When I first noticed the truck that pricked my curiosity, I did not realize that a formidable enemy was behind the steering wheel. I didn’t even get a glimpse of the driver.
My unrelenting curiosity has gotten me in big trouble. It has also saved my butt a lot of times. On balance, it’s a plus. And it isn’t true that curiosity killed the cat. Usually, cats are done in by coyotes or Peterbilts.
Anyway, my curiosity is part of my gift, my sixth sense. I am compelled to indulge it.
The truck was an eighteen-wheel ProStar+. The cool-looking, aerodynamic tractor with the massive grille and lizard-eye headlights was painted red and black with sparkly silver striping. The black trailer bore no corporate logo or advertising.
As I reached the shopping district, the eighteen-wheeler cruised past me, into the heart of the village, heading north. Without realizing what I was doing, I picked up my pace to a racewalk. When the ProStar+ braked at a stop sign, I almost caught up with it.
As the behemoth accelerated across the intersection, I began to run, which was when I realized that I knew intuitively something about the truck must be evil.
Well, not the ProStar+ itself. I’m not one who believes that a vehicle can be possessed by a demonic spirit and, driverless, speed around town to run down people for the thrill of tasting blood with its tires, any more than I believe that Herbie, the Volkswagen in that series of Disney movies, had a mind of its own with a desire to bring lovers together and to thwart villains. If you believe the former, you have to believe the latter, and the next thing you know, you’ll be taking your Ford, with its sexy GPS voice, to the car wash just to see her naked and soapy.
I fell rapidly behind the truck, but then, near the northern end of the village, it turned left off the street, toward a supermarket. If the driver had been making a delivery, he would have gone behind the building to the loading dock. Instead, he pulled to a stop across several parking spaces at the end of the lot nearest to the street.
By the time I reached the eighteen-wheeler, where it stood in the trembling shade of a row of breeze-stirred eucalyptuses, it was unattended. Catching my breath, I walked slowly around the vehicle, looking it over.
My intuition bristled like the hackles on a dog. Heightened intuition is part of my sixth sense.
The day was mild, the breeze mellow, but the area immediately around the truck was colder than could be explained by eucalyptus shade alone. When I put the palm of one hand against the sidewall of the trailer, it felt as though the driver had pulled off the road to wait out a blinding snow squall at high elevation.
This wasn’t what truckers called a reefer, which hauled frozen food. No refrigeration unit was mounted on the front wall of the trailer, behind the tractor.
skylisemo
Posted Tue May 28 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Dean Koontz is an exceptional writer, and the Odd Thomas series is some of his best work. There seemed to be a few years where he was just releasing some books to fulfill his contract with his publisher, but those days seem over. A very good writer telling a story he clearly loves telling. Hopefully the movie(s) does his series justice.
16 out of 18 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Mon Jun 03 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Couldn't put this one down. Listened to it on audio and finished it in two days. I really enjoyed the ending of the book along with the new characters. Dean Koontz did great on this one
5 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Wed Jun 19 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I Also Recommend:
How Disappointing. I am a Koontz fan from way back & have all his books, most twice. I love Odd, but Deeply Odd is such a disappointment that I will not buy another book just because Koontz wrote it. For one the book really lacks a plot or anything else for that matter, unless you want to call pages upon pages and chapters upon chapters of him describing to you what a warehouse looks like and scenery on road trips look like; because that is what this book is all about. Right from the get go Koontz tells you that off has a vision about a truck driver killing some kids, he does not even peak your interest with this. I felt I knew the ending before it even began. He did introduce 2 new characters he could have developed quite nicely but of course he didn't which was another disappointment. The take I got from this book is that Koontz either had someone else write this for him...since Odd did not even sound like Odd on the few occasions he even spoke or did something other describe things in the book, or Koontz has major writers block and owed a publishing company a novel with so many words...since that is all this book is is WORDS with no purpose or intent. I'd just like to know how he managed to screw up a book about such a well established character as Odd. Like others who are Odd fans I would have like to have seen Odd meet up with Chris Snow or Deucalion. I mean really even if he had writers block there was so many other places he could have gone with this story than to just give us a bunch of meaningless descriptions that basically had nothing to do with the story other than fill up pages. No writer can put out great story's every time, but how can you screw up such a wonderfully established character such as Odd....from this point on I will be going to B&N book stores and using my hour free read on my Nook before buying one of his books. I was not too happy with his last book 77 Shadow Street either, I felt the same way, that he was just trying to fill pages with words. Such a disappointment to lose one of your favorite authors.
4 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Tue Jun 04 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I couldnt put this book down. I was anxious for the release and was not dissapointed. This was worth the wait and was an enjoyable read.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Mon Jun 03 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Got it on Friday and couldn't hardly put it down. Read it in two sittings. Very well done, and now I can't wait for the final book.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat Jun 08 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Well written and oddly funny/inspiring/disturbing!
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Fri Jun 07 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Another great book by Dean Koontz, He starts the action off pretty fast in this book and that's really good and stops every so often for a comedic break so in the norm for odd thomas novels I'm sad the series is ending in the next book but every good series must come to an end
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Tue May 28 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I ENJOYED READING THE EXCERPT OF THIS BOOK, AND I FULLY INTEND TO PURCHASE A COPY FOR MY BOOK COLLECTION! WE NEED MORE AUTHORS LIKE MR. KOONTZ!
THOUROUGHLY ENJOYED THE SMALL AMOUNT OF THIS BOOK THAT I WAS ABLE TO READ WITH OUT
HAVING TO BUY THE BOOK BEFORE I KNEW IF I WAS GOING TO LIKE IT!
3 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Thu Jun 06 00:00:00 EDT 2013
"Deeply Odd" the newest addition to the Odd Thomas series is an enthralling tale. This novel grabs your attention from page one and does not dissapoint. "Deeply Odd" is possibly the best novel in the series thus far.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Thu Jul 04 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I love the Oddie books but I could not get into it. Gave up after pg. 100...
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sun Jun 30 00:00:00 EDT 2013
If you enjoy te odd series, you will like this. It starts off slow, but has a good finish.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Thu Jun 27 00:00:00 EDT 2013
This is a wonderful series and this is my favorite book of the series. I hope there are more to come.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Thu Jun 27 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Just finished this book. I've read them all and once done you can't wait for the next book. I highly recommend this Odd story
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Fri Jul 12 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Odd Thomas continues to be a most interesting and likable fellow, but his mood has darkened along with the plots as the series continues. Much of the fun with Odd in earlier stories was his cheerful banter and optimism in the face of crisis. Lately, the gloom seems to be winning. Maybe it's time for Odd to be reunited with Stormy so that they can begin fighting the battles of the next life.
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Posted Fri Jul 05 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Dean Koontz has never disappointed me. If he means to ensnare you with his suspense or his prose, he succeeds at both. Deeply Odd continues the series with another adventure into the mysterious world of Odd Thomas. He has captivated his readers with a truly like able character. The reader can't help but root for the young man who's moral fiber is as good as it gets. Odd is humble, brave, witty, and infallibly duty bound to help his fellow man. In each book of the series, new characters emerge to pull us more deeply into Odd's world. His allies and his enemies have great abilities but it is Odd that guides us into the story. I can't wait for the next installment. Read one of this series and you'll read them all.
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Posted Fri Jul 05 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I would have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Deeply Odd more than the other Odd Thomas books, except for the first. It held my interest from beginning to end. Dean Koontz must have a great sense of humor, because the dialogue between Odd and his "costar" is hilarious. I say read this book definitely.
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Posted Fri Jul 05 00:00:00 EDT 2013
It's always a pleasure to spend time with Dean Koontz' characters, and this thought provoking, scary, weird addition to Odd's journey does not disappoint. Now I am eagerly awaiting his next harrowing adventure.
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Posted Fri Jul 05 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I am a fan of Odd Thomas and I have followed his incredible journey; always awaiting the next installment on his predestined path to enlightenment. This book will not disappoint fans of Odd Thomas; it was outstanding and a remarkable read!
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Posted Fri Jul 05 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Odd Thomas always delights
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Posted Fri Jul 05 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I did not get the usual can't wait to finish and see what happens. More far out than usual. But will always read any Odd Thomas that Koontz produces.
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Overview
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The pistol appeared in his hand the way a dove appears in the hand of a good magician, as if it materialized out of thin air. “You think I won’t do it right here in the open. But you’d be surprised. . . . You’ll drop before you get the breath to scream.”
The truck driver is decked out like a rhinestone cowboy, only instead of a guitar he’s slinging a gun—and Odd Thomas is...