School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up

Koontz moves into the medium of comics with this prequel to his massively popular supernatural thriller series "Odd Thomas" (Bantam). Nineteen-year-old Odd's day job is working as a fry cook and serving up the best pancakes in Pico Mundi, CA. But he also holds supernatural powers that allow him to see and talk to ghosts. When a stalker starts terrifying the town by murdering small children, Odd decides to use his power to help solve the case before anyone else gets hurt. Although lacking the dark terror of the original novels, this story is still filled with plenty of creepy moments as Odd tracks down and confronts this all-too-human monster. Fans of the novels will be pleased to see the light touches of humor that have made the series so distinctive. They will also enjoy seeing the slightly younger, less experienced versions of other familiar characters, like Odd's gun-toting girlfriend, Stormy, and Police Chief Porter. Chan's black-and-white artwork is not too different from her work in her own series, "The Dreaming" (Tokyopop). Heavily inspired by manga-complete with large eyes and visual metaphors like sweat drops on the head-the artist has created a nice visual match for the difficult balance of humor and terror in the story. The volume closes with some character sketches by Chan and a sample chapter from the original novel Odd Thomas (Bantam, 2003) that started it all.-Matthew L. Moffett, Pohick Regional Library, Burke, VA