Odd Hours is probably my least favourite book that I've read in the Odd Thomas series so far. It feels almost like a reboot of the series, because while Odd is there, none of his original supporting cast appears at all in the book. They're mentioned, but not shown and at this point Odd's state of mind is getting as tiresome as Oliver Queen's constant amnesia when it comes to learning the same lesson over and over again on Arrow. And yes, I will forever reference that show when talking about Odd Thomas because in a way they are similar characters. Except Odd is much more engaging than Ollie is. Anyway, my point is that we're now four books into the series and we should see some sort of progression for Odd's character. Not necessarily in terms of Odd still mourning Stormy's death from the first book, after all it's only been like eight and a half to nine months after the first book, and that kind of loss takes a long time to deal with. But he's also not becoming a darker or lighter character. He's just the same as he was two books ago in Forever Odd, before Danny was kidnapped because he knew Odd and his secret.
The book itself is very much like the plot of the first book, except larger in scale, and the bad guys are slightly more competent this time around than they were in Odd Thomas. Though they were still stupid enough to think that Odd was actually a federal agent, whereas he's just a dude who can see dead people and fights crime with that ability. But hey, if they were smart they wouldn't be criminals right? Of course Odd uses their assumptions to his advantage, because he's smart and knows he needs every edge he can get over the bad guys.
Most of the new characters introduced in this book are one offs that we're never going to see again. The only character that sticks around, Annamaria, was hardly in this book. Apparently she's important in the next book, Odd Apocalypse, but she's got no role in this book at all, other than to make Odd aware of the problems that the town he's in, Magic Beach, is having. So why introduce her in this book? Why not wait until the book that she's important in to introduce her? You know, like the way Danny wasn't introduced in the first book because he wasn't important until the second book.
The one thing I did like about this book is how Odd got Frank Sinatra's spirit riled up enough to go into Poltergeist mode so that Odd could escape the corrupt police chief and his henchmen. I mean, yeah, it's just recycling that scene from book 2 where Datura riles up one of the remaining spirits in the casino and Odd uses that to escape from the bad guys, but, at least here it's a little more imaginative because Odd does it himself instead of urging the bad guys to do it. Also it taught me the lesson that you should never say that Rod Stewart is better than Frank Sinatra, in front of Frank Sinatra's ghost. He'll mess your stuff up real bad if you do.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall, Odd Hours isn't as good as the first three Odd Thomas books. It's not badly written by any means, but four books in and Koontz was already starting to recycle plot threads from the previous books, which isn't great when you got three books left to finish your story in. I still like this series as a series and I love Odd Thomas as a character, it's just this book wasn't great. It's not unreadable by any means, it just could've been a lot better. I'm giving Odd Hours 5/10 stars.
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