A review by jgintrovertedreader
Brother Odd by Dean Koontz

4.0

Odd Thomas is back. He's finally getting to take his long-awaited break at the monastery called St. Bartholomew's Abbey. Inevitably, the bodachs appear to him again and they're centered around the disabled children taken care of by the nuns living at the abbey. Odd knows that he doesn't have long to figure out where the threat is coming from and what it even is. He would do anything to protect these most-innocent of innocents.

I really like Odd Thomas. I like his self-effacing sense of humor, his sense of honor, his sense of justice, and his love of people. While this book was probably better than Forever Odd, the second in the series, it wasn't anywhere near as good as Odd Thomas. The plot seemed kind of secondary. After such a long buildup, the climax was pretty short and, after a certain point, obvious. Honestly, if felt like Koontz came up with some of his ideas for this one from Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. Just some subtle stuff, but that's what I thought of.

I did love Koontz's loving descriptions of these special children, the descriptions of Elvis's antics (yes, he's back in this one!), and the tennis-match conversations between Odd and the only other guest at the abbey, the mysterious Russian, Rodion Romanovich. These back-and-forth conversations alone are a good reason to read this one. There was even one statement made by a mentally retarded young man that almost made me cry--and I'm not a crier.

So, the characters and the people were fantastic, but the plot was pretty lame. You'll have to decide if this sounds like it's for you.