Saint Odd by Dean Koontz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can't see how this might be considered a spoiler, since from day one he's expressed this as his fondest wish, but here we are anyway!

Odd Thomas is DEAD.

This book was a final reel winding up the life of a young fry cook who sees dead people and has visions of apocalypses. Cults of satanists and tons of precious friends populated the pages, and we got to see how this young, oh-so-polite, kid learn to reluctantly murder countless bad guys and stay alive just long enough to satisfy his ethics of living before he meets his one true love in the afterlife.

I've loved this series for years. I'm going to be very sorry to see it go. It's so simple and basic that it makes some powerful stuff go on in our viscera.

Most of the time.

Unfortunately, this whole book was a rushed not-quite-recap of the main plot points that didn't really have more than a few good action sequences and heartfelt goodbyes to old allies or at least those allies that remained alive through the series or who didn't stand in for mystical archetypes.

I wanted to love the wrap-up, and I did feel very warm to some parts of it. The last two parts of the very end even brought tears to my eyes. Very sentimental, very beautiful.

Too bad the rest of the novel felt like it had run out of steam or powered up the bad-guys too much and Odd had no where else to go but Norris on their asses. Which, I'm sorry to say, has always felt a little too unreal for this admittedly unreliable but charming narrator.

I still love the series, but in the future, I might just skip rereading the last one. I want to leave the mystery alive.

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