Book Review: Brother Odd by Dean Koontz

The third installment of the Odd Thomas novels finds Odd living in a monastery attempting to recoup from his previous adventures. It's a good life until Odd begins seeing bodachs, mysterious black figures that always precede tragedy. Now he must figure out the source of the danger before it claims the lives of both the monks and the sick children for whom they care. Along the way, he's helped once again by the ghost of Elvis. This time a canine ghost helps, too.

Part of the villainy in this novel is perpetrated by monsters formed of complexly woven bone-like fragments (explained at the end, but here left with the original descriptions). These monsters are freaky, but after the fairly mundane villains Odd has faced in the past, they seemed a bit much. Sure they were scary, but after satanists and voodoo cultists, the true villain of the story was just too outlandish for me.

Overall, this is a good book, but I'm not sure which of Forever Odd or Brother Odd is my least favorite of the series. I'm leaning toward Brother Odd, though, because while its plot is better than that of Forever Odd, it's not really much more than a rehashing of Odd Thomas.

It ends with a touching and heartfelt scene between Odd and Elvis, and the final page left me awaiting the next Odd Thomas novel.